Trump visits newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in
North Dakota's Badlands
[July 02, 2026]
By JACK DURA and COLLIN BINKLEY
MEDORA, N.D. (AP) — 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, built in the rugged, lonely landscape where Roosevelt built
his conservation values in the 1880s.
During a tour of the 96,000-square-foot library and in a speech
afterward, Trump spoke admiringly of Roosevelt and compared himself
favorably to the former president, who he described as the embodiment of
the American spirit, praising his toughness as a leader and outdoorsman.
“He had a freakin’ wild life,” Trump told an audience at a
Western-themed amphitheater. “He didn’t want to be quiet. He wanted to
be great.”
The official opening of the library on Saturday coincides with July 4th
celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the
Declaration of Independence.
Trump made the trip to see the $450 million project aboard his new Air
Force One, a Boeing 747 given to the United States by Qatar. The visit
was 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.
In his speech after the tour, Trump weaved between his own
administration's work while returning to lessons drawn from Roosevelt's
life, recounting stories of bravery during Roosevelt's time in the West
and as president.
“He was something special," Trump said. “He was a really great man. He
was a man the likes of which you may never see again.”
During the visit, Trump announced that his administration was giving
$750,000 from the National Endowment for the Humanities to support the
library’s first year.
Roosevelt was a New York native with a strong North Dakota connection
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.
Near the library is Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Visitors can hike
trails and drive a scenic route through the colorful, rugged Badlands
where bison and wild horses roam.
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.
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Roughrider reenactors wait for President Donald Trump's arrival at
the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library,
Wednesday, July 1, 2026, in Medora, N.D. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
The trip also underscores the president's esteem for Burgum, who has
become a key face of and cheerleader for the president’s expansive
renovation projects around Washington.
In 2019, Burgum championed the library to North Dakota's
Republican-led legislature when he was governor, touting its tourism
potential. The legislature approved a $50 million operations
endowment, requiring library planners to raise $100 million in
private donations, a goal met in 2020. Donations total about $354
million as of early 2026.
Donors include oil executive Harold Hamm, the Waltons of Walmart
fame, Kenneth Griffin, founder and CEO of Citadel, a hedge fund, and
Burgum himself.
The library will showcase Roosevelt's ideas and artifacts
Trump was the library’s first official visitor, according to the
library’s executive director, Robbie Lauf.
All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the
library, which joins more than a dozen others across the country
that examine 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.
Visitors will learn about Roosevelt's conservation ideas and his
Rough Riders regiment of the Spanish-American War, but also his
“horrific comments” about Native Americans and other issues “that
have obviously aged poorly,” Lauf said.
Artifacts, many of them out of public view for decades, will tell
Roosevelt's story. Visitors will see his Rough Riders uniform; the
1884 diary grieving his terrible loss; and the eyeglasses case,
speech and shirt from the 1912 assassination attempt against him.
Organizers hope the library draws families and thousands of school
children from the region, as well as some of the millions of
motorists who travel to Yellowstone National Park and the Black
Hills.
“It's a feature, not a bug, that we are in a county of 1,000 people
and a town of 120,” Lauf said. “TR came here for that purpose.”
The Dakota Resource Council on Tuesday hosted several conservation
leaders who criticized Burgum and Trump for policies they say
contradict Roosevelt's conservation principles, such as cutting
staff and budgets and prioritizing energy development on public
lands.
Last year, Burgum signed an order prioritizing the openness and
accessibility of parks to the public amid the workforce cuts. He has
compared America's public lands and natural resources to “assets”
that should be responsibly developed to exert “energy dominance.”
On Friday, Trump plans to visit South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore for
Independence Day fireworks, as he did in 2020.
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Binkley reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Will
Weissert and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
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