Trump Pardons Two Alaska Diesel Mechanics Onstage at Wasilla Rally as Sullivan Trails Peltola in Polls

President Donald Trump brought two Anchorage diesel mechanics onstage at a rally in Wasilla, Alaska, on Tuesday night, Oct. 13, and signed their pardons in front of the crowd.

The men are Zachary Czubak and Patrick Fleming, co-owners of a diesel repair shop who pleaded guilty in 2022 to conspiracy to violate the Clean Air Act. Trump also referred to an earlier pardon for Mackenzie "Mac" Spurlock, a Wasilla diesel shop owner.

"What an honor. I love doing this stuff," Trump said.

What the mechanics admitted

The Justice Department said at the time that Czubak and Fleming were among three co-owners of a shop called Arm Rippin Toys. Prosecutors said the owners removed federally required emissions-control equipment and tampered with monitoring devices on at least 37 diesel vehicles between July 2019 and September 2020. The shop collected about $100,000 for the work, prosecutors said.

Trump framed the cases as Biden-era overreach. He said the men's work kept trucks running in Alaska's extreme cold. One of the men thanked him from the stage: "It really did destroy us. It destroyed friendships. It destroyed families."

Trump also took a shot at his predecessor while signing. "Something that Joe Biden would be unable to do because he was unable to sign his signature," he said, a reference to Biden's use of an autopen.

The guilty pleas stand as fact. The pardons erase the consequences, not the admissions.

A Senate seat in play

The rally was a political rescue mission. Trump came to boost Sen. Dan Sullivan, a Republican seeking a third term against former Rep. Mary Peltola, a Democrat.

Peltola has led in the Decision Desk HQ polling average for much of the fall. An MS NOW/Fifty Plus One poll puts her ahead by 3 points. MS NOW reports that a Peltola win would give Democrats a path to the Senate majority, provided they hold their 47 seats and flip four. Midterms are about three weeks away.

The visit is Trump's sixth trip to Alaska since 2019. His last Alaska campaign stop was in July 2022, according to MS NOW.

Trump went after Peltola by name. "I hear she's a whack job, by the way," he said. He also claimed she "worked hand in hand with crooked Joe Biden to viciously crush Alaska energy."

The pipeline and the pump

Energy was the centerpiece. Trump pitched an 807-mile natural gas pipeline from the North Slope to a terminal in southern Alaska. "The gigantic project that we just created for Alaska will create over 13,000 jobs for you and save the typical Alaska household more than $2,000 a year on your energy bills," he said.

Last month Trump and Sullivan stood in the Oval Office and announced that South Korea would invest $54 billion in the project. A top South Korean official then said the country's participation "had not been finalized." The pipeline itself has bipartisan support, including from Peltola.

The job and savings figures are Trump's own claims. No independent estimate appears in the reporting.

Prices are the problem he has to answer for. Alaska gas averages $5.02 a gallon, up from $3.87 a year ago. The war with Iran has pushed fuel prices up nationally, and industry leaders in Alaska are warning of a possible energy crisis.

Trump blamed Democrats. "They caused the highest prices in history, and then they start screaming affordability," he said. "But we have reduced it very substantially." He offered no figures from the stage on the reduction.

Claims that don't match the record

Trump repeated that he had to start the war on Iran because "they were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon." The Guardian's review of the record noted that U.S. intelligence agencies told Congress in 2025 that Iran had suspended its pursuit of a nuclear weapon in 2003. Trump ordered strikes on Iranian enrichment sites in summer 2025 and announced the full-scale war in February 2026.

He also retold a story about reporters demanding action on affordability the day after his Jan. 20, 2025 inauguration. The Guardian found no such exchange in the transcript of his Jan. 21, 2025 news conference. According to that review, the questions that day focused mainly on his pardons of Jan. 6 defendants.

Other news from the day

White House press secretary Katie Zacharia held her first briefing Tuesday and said the White House had asked Ambassador to Greece Kimberly Guilfoyle to resign. Trump, leaving for Alaska, said of the reports surrounding her post: "I didn't like what I read." Guilfoyle has since resigned.

What comes next

South Korea has not publicly confirmed the $54 billion commitment that anchors Trump's jobs and savings pitch. Until it does, the number Alaskans heard at the rally is an announcement, not a signed deal. Sullivan has about three weeks to turn it into votes.