President Donald Trump flew to North Dakota on Wednesday to dedicate the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a project long-championed by Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
In a meandering speech, set against a backdrop of reenactors dressed like Roosevelt’s Rough Riders — the nickname for a military unit the future president led in the Spanish-American War — Trump marked the opening of the project in Medora, North Dakota.
“Theodore Roosevelt did not surrender to fate. He came here to Medora and made himself fate’s master,” Trump said, after paraphrasing a page from Roosevelt’s diary.
Advertisement
Roosevelt first visited the Dakota Territory in 1883 to hunt bison and returned in 1884 following the loss of his wife and mother on the same day that year.
