Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar Says Socialists Are Using His Party as a 'Vehicle'

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, went on Fox News's "Saturday in America" this weekend and said publicly what many moderate Democrats think: the Democratic Socialists of America isn't trying to join the Democratic Party. It's trying to use it.

"They're trying to use the safe Democratic seats to run in," Cuellar said. "And they also know that the Democratic Party is inadequate, but they're using us or trying to use the Democratic Party as a vehicle so later they can set up their own platform."

Cuellar said he actually read the DSA platform. His verdict: radical. He listed what he considers the group's real agenda, stripped of the campaign-trail packaging: abolishing ICE, defunding police, eliminating prisons, open borders, restructuring the Supreme Court, and getting rid of the Senate.

"As a Democrat, I reject what the DSA is doing," Cuellar said. "They want to get rid of the Senate. So constitutional changes there. They want to get rid of ICE. I reject that. They want to defund police. I reject that... They want to have open borders also. I reject that. They want to get rid of prisons. I reject that."

The Pitch Versus the Platform

Cuellar's core argument is about messaging discipline, not just ideology. He says DSA-aligned candidates don't campaign on abolishing the Senate. They campaign on rent, groceries, and housing costs, then govern differently once elected.

"They're talking about affordability and housing, things that sound good," Cuellar said. "But we as Democrats, we reject that radical faction."

A candidate's public messaging can differ from a platform document published by the organization backing them, and voters have a legitimate interest in knowing which one governs their behavior in office. Whether that gap reflects strategic communication or bait-and-switch is a judgment call, but the underlying claim, that DSA's national platform includes positions more sweeping than what individual candidates emphasize on the trail, is checkable against DSA's own published materials rather than speculation.

Cuellar isn't a neutral observer here. DSA and Justice Democrats-aligned groups spent more than $20 million trying to defeat him in past primaries, according to his own account on Fox News. He beat them running on border security, oil and gas jobs, and support for Border Patrol. He's got a personal stake in framing the socialist wing as a threat to Democrats like him.

The Broader Pattern

Cuellar's comments land against a backdrop of real primary wins for the DSA-aligned left. In Colorado, DSA-backed candidate Melat Kiros defeated longtime incumbent Rep. Diana DeGette in a Denver-area primary, according to voz.us. In New York City, candidates backed by socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani ousted established Democratic figures in late June primaries.

Mamdani himself has pushed back on the idea that his politics are toxic to business. Fox News reported that Mamdani is doubling down on democratic socialism while insisting Wall Street and corporate leaders "have nothing to fear," arguing his brand of politics reflects the New Deal era rather than something more extreme.

Elsewhere, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., framed Michigan's Democratic Senate primary as a fight against the "billionaire class," backing progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed over Rep. Haley Stevens, D-Mich., according to Fox News.

These are three data points in different states pointing the same direction: an organized, well-funded socialist-aligned bloc is contesting and in some cases winning Democratic primaries against establishment incumbents. That's a verifiable trend, not a talking point.

What's Actually Unproven

What's not established by anything in these reports is DSA's internal strategic intent, meaning whether the organization is formally coordinating a plan to "use" the Democratic Party as a stepping stone toward a separate socialist party, as Cuellar alleges. Fox News noted it reached out to DSA for comment. There's no indication in these reports that DSA responded to Cuellar's specific accusation.

It's also worth separating two different claims that get blended in coverage: DSA's official platform positions, which are published and checkable, versus what individual DSA-endorsed candidates campaign on. Cuellar's criticism assumes the platform reflects what candidates would actually do in office. That's a reasonable inference given how party platforms typically function, but it's still an inference, not a documented instance of a DSA-backed member of Congress voting to abolish the Senate.

The open question is whether Cuellar's warning changes anything inside his own caucus. House Democratic leadership has not, per these reports, publicly responded to Cuellar's comments or committed to a formal rejection of DSA-aligned primary challengers. With Kiros in Colorado and Mamdani-backed winners in New York already seated or poised to take office, the fight Cuellar is describing isn't hypothetical. It's already reshaping who holds Democratic seats.