MEDORA, N.D. — President Donald Trump visited North Dakota on Wednesday to see the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the life of America’s 26th president. Saturday’s official opening of the library coincides with July 4th celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Trump came early to see the $450 million project, a boost for Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota, while also bringing the nation’s birthday festivities to a region
synonymous with its westward expansion. The 96,000-square-foot library is in the rugged, lonely landscape where Roosevelt built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s. In an address after touring the library, Trump compared himself favorably to Roosevelt and said the 26th president “embodied the heart and soul and fight and spirit of our country, as much as anyone who ever lived.” Trump recounted episodes from Roosevelt’s life, praising his bravery and toughness as an outdoorsman and politician. “He had a freakin’ wild
life,” Trump told the audience at a Western-themed amphitheater. “He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to be great.” The Republican president made the trip aboard his new Air Force One, a Boeing 747 given to the United States by Qatar. Trump said he asked Boeing, which is set to deliver new planes for the president’s service in 2028, whether there were any countries with potential substitutes in the interim. “I said, ‘Who has the best one?’ They said, ‘Qatar,'” Trump said, adding that
he was assured, “There’s never been a plane like it.” All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which joins more than a dozen throughout the country examining the lives and legacies of U.S. presidents from Ronald Reagan in California to Franklin D. Roosevelt in New York and Herbert Hoover in Iowa. The Obama Presidential Center recently opened in Chicago, bringing together four former presidents for the occasion. Trump has often described an affinity with Roosevelt. Trump began his second term
last year by trumpeting the construction of the Panama Canal during the Roosevelt administration. Trump even said the U.S. might seek to take back the waterway from Panama to curb influence from China. That goal has been overshadowed by his suggestions that Washington might seize control of Greenland or that Canada could become America’s 51st state. Given a chance to talk with an artificial intelligence version of Roosevelt at the library, Trump asked if the 26th president considered the Panama Canal his greatest achievement. A
digital Roosevelt said he took pride in it while also listing achievements involving parks, medicine and his Square Deal. In the run-up to staging a UFC fight on the White House lawn for his 80th birthday, Trump said he was aware of Roosevelt holding far lower-key boxing matches in the White House. Trump made no mention of Roosevelt having detached the retina of his left eye during one such sparring session. Roosevelt visited Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison. On Valentine’s Day the next
year, his mother and wife died hours apart in the same house in New York. Devastated, Roosevelt came to Dakota where he ranched cattle and hunted big game in the West during visits mostly from 1884 to 1887. He underwent deep personal growth from his experiences, including chasing boat thieves down a river, standing up to a bully in a bar and working alongside cowboys who ridiculed him for wearing eyeglasses. Roosevelt, who served as president from 1901 to 1909, later said he never would
have been president were it not for his experiences in North Dakota.
Trump, Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, Medora, North Dakota, July 4, Declaration of Independence, Doug Burgum, Air Force One, Boeing 747, Qatar, Boeing 2028 delivery