Trump touts his right-to-repair pardons, then asks ‘what the hell am I wasting my time for?’

Donald Trump finally asked the question his rallies have been raising for years: “What the hell am I wasting my time for?” He asked it on Monday in Corinth, Mississippi, about one of his own lines.

The line was right to repair. “I also gave you the right to repair your own equipment and trucks,” he told the crowd, and “I gave pardons two weeks ago to people that were fixing their truck.” Then came the story, in his telling: “A man was sentenced to five years in jail. Oh, what did he do? Who did he kill? He didn’t. He fixed his truck.” He didn’t name the man. The pardons and the sentence are his description. The pardons he signed on stage in Alaska on 13 October went to diesel-shop owners who pleaded guilty to removing emissions controls from customers’ vehicles. CBS News reports each was sentenced to five years of probation.

Judging by his questions, the crowd hadn’t heard of any of it. “Did you know that?” he asked. “Does anyone — do the farmers know that?” Then: “And did nobody know that?” He said he didn’t know why the hell that line was in there. He tried the congressman next: “Do you know that, Mr. Congressman?”

One man did know. “Roger knew about it,” Trump said, about someone he called Roger. “I can’t believe nobody knew about it. I’m so proud of it. What the hell am I wasting my time for?” The speechwriters have their answer. It’s in there for Roger.