This is awesome!
Today, President Trump visited the newly-built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in South Dakota.
On his way there, his motorcade got a very special escort from the riders on horseback dressed like Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders!”
Watch the epic moment for yourself:
President Trump's motorcade receives an escort to the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library from the Rough Riders! 🐎🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/y5VVkAV9Mv
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 1, 2026
In case you don’t know, the Rough Riders was the name of President Roosevelt’s military unit, which he led up San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War.
Before this, President Trump flew in to North Dakota on his new Air Force One.
Then, he arrived in the city of Medora on a special train decked out in Freedom 250 decorations:
WATCH: @POTUS arrives in Medora, North Dakota aboard the @Freedom250 train. 🔥🚂🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/57AFR3XMik
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) July 1, 2026
President Trump made history as the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library’s very first visitor today.
The library will have its official grand opening this weekend, but President Trump got to see it first!
He also cut the ribbon at the library’s dedication ceremony:
🚨 NOW: President Trump has just CUT THE RIBBON to open the Teddy Roosevelt Presidential Library at the dedication ceremony
LFG! Trump is reveling in the history and greatness! 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/sa1qwb1AEq
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) July 1, 2026
AP News reported further on President Trump’s visit to the library:
President Donald Trump is visiting North Dakota on Wednesday to see the newly built Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a massive facility exploring the life of America’s 26th president. The 96,000-square-foot library is in the rugged, lonely landscape where the young Easterner built his conservation values while ranching and hunting in the 1880s.
Saturday’s official opening coincides with July Fourth celebrations honoring the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Trump is coming 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 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, if there were any countries that had 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.’”
After arriving in North Dakota, Trump traveled by train to Medora, an Old West tourist town where onlookers cheered his arrival. Trump greeted the crowd, which included a reenactment regiment of Roosevelt’s Rough Riders, before heading to the library in his motorcade.
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 will be the library’s first official visitor, according to the library’s executive director, Robbie Lauf. Trump will speak at a nearby Western-themed amphitheater at an event run by Freedom 250, the Trump-created group billed as nonpartisan that he has tapped to organize the festivities he will participate in this week.
ADVERTISEMENTOn Friday, the president plans to visit South Dakota’s Mount Rushmore for Independence Day fireworks, as he did in 2020.
Trump has often praised Roosevelt and has compared himself favorably to the late president. Trump began his second term last year by trumpeting 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 is a goal overshadowed by his suggestions that Washington might seize control of Greenland or that Canada could become America’s 51st state.
While there, President Trump was given a tour of the new library.
He stopped to ask AI Teddy Roosevelt for advice on potentially re-taking the Panama Canal!
Watch this:
President Trump asks AI President Roosevelt…“Do you consider the Panama Canal your greatest achievement?” pic.twitter.com/zvfDCL2sKS
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) July 1, 2026
Here’s another clip of him interacting with the AI Roosevelt:
.@POTUS interacts with AI President Theodore Roosevelt at the Theodore Roosevelt Library in North Dakota 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4ISRo2Tsbj
— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) July 1, 2026
That’s as close as you’re going to get to seeing two of the greatest U.S. presidents of all-time together!
It’s very cool, don’t you think?
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