President Trump traveled to North Dakota on Wednesday and toured the forthcoming Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, where he hailed his GOP predecessor as a man “with an unyielding sense of America’s destiny and pride.”
“Theodore Roosevelt believed in the America that really works and worked. He refused to accept failure, mediocrity, corruption, decay or decline and neither should we,” Mr. Trump said in Medora, North Dakota.
During the speech, he repeatedly emphasized that Roosevelt’s spirit lives on as America celebrated 250 years since its founding in 1776.
“The life of Theodore Roosevelt reminds us that Americans never give up. He never stopped, never quit, and never surrendered in pursuit of his dreams, or his pursuit of America’s Destiny — and neither will we,” he said.
The event was one of several Mr. Trump joined to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary this week. On Friday, he will fly to South Dakota to attend a fireworks show at Mount Rushmore, and on July Fourth, he will host a rally on the National Mall.
The 96,000-square-foot, $450 million library explores the life of Roosevelt. Although the 26th president was born in New York, he traveled to North Dakota to ranch and hunt in the 1880s.
After arriving in North Dakota, Mr. Trump traveled by train to Medora, an Old West tourist town where he was cheered upon his arrival. He was joined by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, a former governor of North Dakota.
All living presidents were invited to the grand opening of the library, which is among 20 or so libraries displaying the lives and legacies of the U.S. presidents from Ronald Reagan in California to Jimmy Carter in Georgia to Herbert Hoover in Iowa. President Obama opened his museum in Chicago last month.
Mr. Trump will be the library’s first official visitor.
He has often praised Roosevelt and compared himself favorably to the former president. Mr. Trump started his second term by talking about his desire to reclaim the Panama Canal, which was built during the Roosevelt administration but transferred back to Panama under President Carter.
Ahead of the UFC fight on the White House lawn last month, Mr. Trump noted that Roosevelt also held boxing matches at the White House.
