Bobby Pulido, the Democratic congressional candidate in South Texas, wrote social media posts downplaying child molestation and brought a convicted child sex offender to perform at a middle school benefit concert, and his campaign has refused to address any of it.

Pulido, a Latin Grammy-winning Tejano singer now running for Congress against Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz, posted on X in August 2018 that "child molestation is abhorrent" but added that it is "not necessarily rape or murder." He argued that sex offenders have been "unfairly demonized" and compared restrictions on them to a hypothetical gun ban targeting white people because "most mass shooters are white." The Daily Caller reported on the posts and Pulido's broader record with convicted offenders, and his campaign did not respond to a request for comment before publication.

Two years before those posts, in 2016, Pulido brought his longtime friend and bandmate Frankie Caballero Sr. to perform at a benefit concert held at a Texas middle school. Caballero had served prison time for indecent sexual contact with an eight-year-old girl. He appeared on stage at the school just months after his release from prison.

Pulido did not stop there. At a separate concert in November 2018, he introduced Caballero on stage by calling him a "bad man" and then quipped that although Caballero was born in South Bend, Indiana, he did not attend Notre Dame, he went to "Penn State." When Caballero stepped back from the microphone, Pulido laughed and said, "No, no, I'm just kidding, don't worry." The joke traded on the Penn State child sex abuse scandal for a laugh, directed at a man convicted of molesting a child, in front of a live audience.

Pulido bragged about bailing out a child predator, then claimed ignorance

The concert and the social media posts are only part of the picture. In a 2019 YouTube interview, Pulido boasted about getting Caballero "out of jail" early in his career. Breitbart reported that the resurfaced video showed Pulido openly discussing his role in securing Caballero's release. The New York Post later published a report documenting the same claim, that Pulido publicly took credit for bailing out a man who had sexually assaulted a child.

Pulido had previously claimed he did not know Caballero was a convicted sex offender. That claim sits uneasily next to the 2019 interview, the 2018 social media posts defending sex offenders as a class, and the Penn State joke delivered while introducing Caballero on stage. If Pulido truly did not know about Caballero's record, he had an unusual number of occasions to find out, and chose instead to joke about it.

Caballero's criminal history is not limited to the child sex offense. His record spans three decades and includes charges for DWI, cocaine possession, assault by strangulation, and the sex assault conviction that sent him to prison. He was sentenced to four years in May 2014 for indecent sexual contact with a minor and continued touring with Pulido after his release.

A former Hidalgo County prosecutor quoted in reporting on the case called the personal recognizance bond in the felony rape case "outrageous," saying it "only could have happened with the blessing of the DA's office." That detail raises its own questions about how Caballero moved through the legal system and who helped him along the way.

A second convicted sex offender surfaces in Pulido's orbit

Caballero Sr. is not the only convicted child sex offender tied to Pulido. His son, Frankie Caballero Jr., a Tejano singer in his own right, pleaded guilty in 2002 to sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl. He remains listed on the Texas sex offender registry. Current Revolt published a report linking Caballero Jr. to Pulido, and promotional biographies for Caballero Jr. from both 2019 and 2023 state that he "grew up touring" with Bobby Pulido.

The pattern is difficult to dismiss as coincidence. A congressional candidate maintained a long professional and personal relationship with a father convicted of molesting an eight-year-old and a son convicted of sexually abusing a fourteen-year-old, and then went online to argue that sex offenders as a group have been treated unfairly. Voters in South Texas are now being asked to send that man to Congress. Cases involving convicted sex offenders and the systems that fail to hold them accountable draw public outrage for good reason. Pulido's record invites scrutiny of a different kind, not a system failure, but a personal choice, repeated over years.

Pulido's own words tell the story

In his August 2018 X post, Pulido wrote:

"Child molestation is abhorrent. But is not necessarily rape or murder, what you said. My point, and Geraldo's point, is they have been unfairly demonized. It's like if I said that whites shouldn't be able to buy guns because most mass shooters are white."

In a follow-up post from the same thread, he added:

"Those 'stats' you saw are public record. I just can't believe they have not been openly publicized, so someone like me can see them."

The posts were not ambiguous. Pulido did not merely defend a friend, he advanced a broader argument that convicted child sex offenders face disproportionate social stigma. He framed that argument as a matter of fairness. For a man now asking voters to trust his judgment on law, policy, and the safety of their communities, those words carry weight.

The Republican National Committee did not hold back. RNC spokesman Zach Kraft issued a statement calling Pulido "more concerned with how illegal immigrant pedophiles are viewed than the child victims of serious sex crimes," and said he "lacks the morals, judgment, and basic human decency to represent south Texans in Congress."

Pulido's campaign has not responded to any of the reporting, not from the Daily Caller, and not from the earlier reports by the New York Post, Axios, or Fox News Digital. The silence is notable for a candidate who was happy to post publicly about sex offenders in 2018 and joke about them on stage later that year. Accountability in public life requires more than admissions after the fact, it requires answering hard questions before voters go to the polls.

November's ballot carries a clear contrast

Pulido will face Republican Rep. Monica De La Cruz on November 3rd. De La Cruz already holds the seat. The general election will test whether South Texas voters are willing to overlook a candidate's years-long association with convicted child sex offenders, his public defense of that association, and his refusal to explain any of it.

Meanwhile, Pulido's campaign account posted a photo on June 13, 2026, with the caption: "Nothing like the vibes in South Texas!" The vibes, at this point, include a candidate who brought a child molester to a middle school, joked about it on stage, argued online that sex offenders are unfairly treated, and then went silent when reporters came calling. Political figures across the spectrum face scrutiny over their associations and conduct, some are held accountable, while others hope the story fades.

Democrats have spent years telling voters they are the party that protects children. South Texas voters now have a chance to ask whether that commitment extends to their own candidates, or only to campaign slogans. As the party navigates its own internal contradictions on everything from ideology to leadership, the Pulido case presents a straightforward test of basic judgment.

When a man running for Congress defends child molesters, brings one to a school, and then refuses to answer for it, voters do not need a party label to know what they are looking at.