How North Dakota Finally Built Theodore Roosevelt's New Library

MEDORA, North Dakota — The Badlands are as starkly beautiful today as when Theodore Roosevelt arrived seeking solace and purpose after his wife and mother died on the same day in 1884. What's different is Medora, the tiny North Dakota town Roosevelt arrived in by train, has become something like a frontier version of Colonial Williamsburg. And now the sleepy tourist stop near the Montana border, and not much else, is getting a jolt: Teddy finally has his own presidential library here.

You may have seen images of President Donald Trump touching down last week, his motorcade escorted by a convoy of horse-mounted roughriders — an only-in-America tableau designed for maximum Independence Day coverage.

Well, that choreography was no accident; nor was Trump's presence far away from an airport large enough to land Air Force One.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and a handful of other North Dakotan leaders have been planning this moment for nearly a decade. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library sits at that star-spangled intersection of history, present-day politics and local boosterism.

Roosevelt's birthplace in Manhattan's Flatiron and his sprawling Oyster Bay summer estate on Long Island are both run by the National Park Service. Yet because he served before the National Archives took over the presidential library system, Roosevelt was the most famous American president post-Lincoln without his own dedicated library.

Enter Burgum, Gov. Kelly Armstrong, Sen. Kevin Cramer and the other North Dakotans who saw opportunity — and dollar signs — at the foot of the Theodore Roosevelt National Park here.

Raising over $350 million, overwhelmingly from private donors, the North Dakotans met their goal of opening the library for America's 250th birthday. And it is a gem. Sitting atop a butte, with a beige color matching the sandstone land, Teddy's temple offers resplendent views outside and a vivid, high-tech retelling of his life therein. As the remarkably lifelike AI Roosevelt inside might say, he'd be "deeee-lighted."

It's also a “bully” development for the North Dakotans of today, who aim to create a Teddy Triangle for roadtrippers, luring travelers from Mount Rushmore to Yellowstone to here in Medora.

I sat down with Burgum, who began this push as governor, Armstrong and Cramer on the balcony of the Little Missouri Saloon in Medora. Yes, this was the first “On the Road” with more than a single guest.

Over bison burgers and a walleye sandwich, we discussed how Burgum tried to use TR history to leverage a JPMorgan contribution, how much time he spends on Trump's own passion project, Washington, D.C., beautification, and when exactly the president calls him. Oh, and Cramer disclosed his efforts to smooth relations between the oil-and-water combo that is the Trump-John Thune relationship, while making some news and calling out his GOP colleagues on the filibuster.

But as you'll see, the library and the land are the main event here. And what better way to celebrate our country at 250 than in a wide-open space? And what better way to reflect on who we are than discussing that most American of presidents — with his big appetites, big flaws and that quintessentially American hustle.

Don’t forget, you can watch this on YouTube or listen to it as a podcast here.

The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

We're here in the badlands of North Dakota — the place that Theodore Roosevelt came as a young man, seeking solace and purpose, and became the eventual president he would be. And we're joined by three North Dakotans who know from Theodore Roosevelt, know from Medora and know from the library that's being built here: Senator Kevin Cramer, Governor Kelly Armstrong and Secretary Doug Burgum.

Doug Burgum: First of all, a huge team effort. And kudos and congratulations to Kevin and Kelly.

You build the presidential library in a place like this, at the entrance of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, for three reasons. One is: We want to make sure that we understand the past, and Theodore Roosevelt had such an impact on our country today — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Bureau of Reclamation running 400 dams. Without irrigation, there's no Arizona as a state, there's no California agriculture. Our national park system may be considered by many the nation's best idea. So, massive impact. But also on foreign policy — Panama Canal, building a strong military … all these things that he did to contribute, really realigning capitalism to set up the whole century. We need to understand that and be proud of it. But then, the second thing we need to do is inspire future generations.

It wouldn't be On the Road with John Martin if there wasn’t food at the table, and we are going to eat here. We've got a bison burger. We got a walleye sandwich with some rings, some kind of a flatbread pizza. We got sliders here, too, with some kind of rings. Anyway, don't be shy, guys.

You three are all proud North Dakotans, and speaking of emotion, you've also traveled all over the world, all over the country, obviously, and you have heard this in conversation — I know each of you has because I've talked to each of about this. You'll meet somebody and they'll say, ‘Oh, North Dakota, it's great, I went out there with my family when I was a kid, we did the whole trip to Mount Rushmore.’ I know you're laughing now, but it kinda pisses you off, right? This is kind of a way of telling people, ‘No, this is not the Rushmore state. We're not gonna be the 50th state anymore.’ And you guys have smartly embraced that. You have coffee mugs and t-shirts which say ‘my 50th state’ because for a lot of folks — like my wife Betsy is here, and it's one of her last states that she's gotten to. This could potentially change that. And so it's not going to be the 50th state, it's not going to be the place where people think they got to but actually it was South Dakota anymore, right?

Kevin Cramer: So let me tell you, when I was tourism director…

In a previous life. How many jobs have you had by the way? 

Cramer: In a previous life — most fun I've ever had at work, just so you know.

Burgum: And he was a good one, by the way, too.

Cramer: I had the largest name ID of any Republican in North Dakota when I was chosen director because we had no elected people, except Ed Schafer who had just won governorship.

It was a Democratic state still for a while.

Cramer: It was. I'm the first Republican in my life to have this job. But we had a 1-800 number, remember those? 1-800-HELLOND, and we had that on all of our promotional material. South Dakota did not. So one day, the head of our call center comes in and says, ‘We have a problem. About half of our calls are people asking how to get to Mount Rushmore. So I keep getting pissed when I give them a long-distance phone number to call.’ I said, well, give them directions. You take an airplane to Fargo, you rent a car there. You take I-94 across the street. Just give them directions to Mount Rushmore, just gonna be a little longer than they thought.

North Dakota was an incredible beacon of populism in the early 20th century, so much so that you guys — I know this is going to shock you, those who are worried about the socialists taking over in New York City and big cities. Guess what? This state has a state bank to this day because of the populist backlash in the early 20th century. 

Cramer: Well, these two have been chairman of the board.

That was against big business in Minneapolis and Chicago because the big railroads and the grain companies in the big cities at the time, Chicago and Minneapolis, were screwing over the farmers here, right? 

Cramer: That’s why we have a state mill and elevator and a state bank —

Is there a DSA now, Kelly, here in North Dakota?

Cramer: Both of those institutions were actually passed into law the same year that Roosevelt died. 1919 was when the Bank of North Dakota and the state mill and elevator —

Burgum: And when Roosevelt died, he was the leading candidate to get the nomination in 1920. He likely would have, if he'd have lived, he likely would've been president again.

Cramer: So you're right. I’ve always said North Dakota was a populous way before Donald Trump invented it. It's a very different, though, time. But these institutions, the Bank of North Dakota — these two guys can tell you, one of the reasons I was such a strong advocate for Doug Burgum to not just be interior secretary, but run all of energy for the Trump administration, was because he understands capital formation. He understands not just federal lands and land use. He understands geopolitics. He understands international marketing. My gosh, you know, he did it for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Isn't a state-owned bank kind of socialism, though, governor? 

Kelly Armstrong: You had first-generation Scandinavian immigrants, Norwegians out here that were fighting with a lot of large-scale businesses, particularly in Minneapolis at the time. And I have no doubt that if you would try and start one now in any state — Democrat or Republican, anywhere in the country — you couldn't do it. But it has been a tremendous asset. The three of us will all tell you the biggest threat to North Dakota entrepreneurship, North Dakota growth, particularly in the small business and starting-business sector is access to capital. So having these equalizers to be able to do that and to keep the family farm in place and to keep every single community in North Dakota that relies on the family farm to go to the diner, to go to the grocery store, to go to all of those things and also figure out how we work forward to make sure that exists 50 years from now...

Speaking of capital, isn't there a story, Doug Burgum, where you were in Tokyo at the U.S. Embassy? And I think a shy, retiring fellow named Rahm Emanuel may have been the ambassador to Japan. And you were there when you were governor of North Dakota. And I think Jamie Dimon, the CEO of JPMorgan, was coming in soon after you. And you tried to give Rahm a note or something to give to Dimon to raise some money for the library, or you volunteered to stay overnight in the embassy to greet Dimon the next day? How far did you go?

Burgum: Well, part of those things are accurate. And of course, Rahm Emanuel, when he was there, he said, ‘I love Theodore Roosevelt, I want to come to the opening,’ and I saw his name on the list. He may be at the dinner tonight.

Armstrong: It's almost like he's running for something.

Burgum: But the reason why we were having that conversation there, we were talking about the library. We were talking about where are you going to get the funding? And this was in the early time of trying to raise capital.

And I said, well, clearly, it was Theodore Roosevelt and J.P. Morgan, the person who saved America from financial collapse in the 1907 financial crisis. That led to the creation of the Federal Reserve, for better or worse, in 1915, eight years later. The two of them, with J.P. Morgan using his same balance sheet. So if Jamie's listening to your program — I'm sure he's a regular listener to it — I've asked him a dozen times, now we're here. We still need a donation from JPMorgan Chase for the library because there is a display talking about how J.P. Morgan and TR saved America from this financial collapse. And the question was, Jamie, do you want the Bank of America's logo underneath that exhibit? Or would you like the JPMorgan one? So we're still working on the answer for that. But we've had great support from lots of other people that understand the importance of that.

Armstrong: Anybody who thinks they can tell you with what certainty President Roosevelt would think of anything going on in 2026 should actually read An Unlikely Trust. And it's the book about the relationship between J.P. Morgan and Teddy Roosevelt. Things tend to be a little more complicated than advocates want to say in a one-paragraph X-post.

Let's talk about present-day politics a bit. And secretary, I want to start with you because your job as interior secretary involves the national parks. Obviously, it involves oil and gas leaks, but also involves something that Donald Trump is really passionate about, which is beautifying Washington, D.C. You and I talked in March about this for a bit. But he will call you on your cell phone like every night checking in about projects, right? And he wants to know — Reflecting Pool, golf courses, Union Station, right? Tell us what that's like. Is it daily, is it more than once a day? What kind of questions is he asking you? 

Burgum: President Trump is a prolific worker. He works like 20 hours a day. Kevin and Kelly know that. These guys are good friends. They connect with him. I'm sure Kevin's had calls at all hours of the night. So it’s nothing special that he's calling me. If his staff goes to bed at 10 and he's still got a couple of phones in his hands, he's dialing long into the night.

What's he asking you when you call? 

Burgum: He's usually asking about progress reports on how things are going. When he's either flying to Joint Base Andrews in his helicopter and has spotted something, or he may have been driving to an event in town, and he's seen some other one — and he doesn't miss a detail — then he'll be like, ‘What about this?’ ‘What about that?’ ‘Are we working on this?’ And of course, we had the example of having a nation that was under the Biden administration in decline. The fact was, we had allowed 48 monuments to fall into disrepair. We had 22 fountains that hadn't had water running, in some cases, for decades. We had over a thousand graffiti sites, 152 homeless encampments. All that was our starting point just 18 months ago.

Did you know, taking this job, that a big chunk of your work was going to be on D.C. monuments? 

Burgum: We knew with President Trump that he wanted to have a beautiful Capitol. We knew that, and he codified that in his ‘Safe and Beautiful’ executive order. And we had a chance to work on the safety side because of the U.S. Park Police report into interior also. And we've doubled the size of that organization, increased their authorities, and they're a big part of why the crime rate in D.C. is down. So it's not just one thing. It's not just like we're fixing fountains. President Trump has created a blueprint for every major blue metro in America. If you want to have a clean city with beautiful public spaces that are safe, it's just a functional leadership.

The Reflecting Pool, though, because Cramer was saying that he saw some algae on your boots walking in here from the Reflecting Pool. Was Trump ticked off about the Reflecting Pool and trying to get that thing blue? Was he saying, ‘Come on Doc, we gotta get this done!’

Burgum: Well, he was. He had a foreign visitor in his office that told him the thing looked like a swamp. Then we started digging into it, and that's when I’d learned that it had been closed for two years from 2010 to 2012, and the Obama administration spent $34 million and didn't fix the leaking.

Why is it so hard to get it blue, though, again?

Burgum: Part of it is not about getting it blue. Part of it's just having it work in the sense that it is an eight-acre pool. It means it's bigger than eight football fields, and there are two and a half miles of expansion joints. And on a hot day versus a cool night, six inches in 2,000 feet of… well, 1 percent shrinkage or expansion would be 20 feet. I mean, this is in the margin, less than one-tenth of 1 percent. But you got six inches of movement on that concrete, on 2 1/2 miles of expansion joints, it's gonna leak unless you have a solution.

President Trump is, ‘Why don't we have a pool liner in it? Like an industrial sink pool liner?’ We're like, ‘That's a really good idea, we'll start making calls.’

That's a really hands-on approach.

It's a very hands-on approach. And then what color should it be? Anybody from the original design said, ‘It will reflect better.’ The point is not to see the bottom like a swimming pool, where you could see every leaf in the pool and it's really light blue. The point was, it's got to look dark, and he picked American flag blue. It's beautiful. You see the photographs of it. So anyway, for the first time in who knows how long, maybe since it was created, it's not leaking 45,000 gallons a day.

Is there a day that goes by when he hasn't called you on your cell phone? 

Burgum: Oh, yeah. Like when he's on an overseas trip or something.

What time does he call? He calls at night, usually?

Burgum: Well, I'd say in the last week, the earliest call I've had is 8 a.m., and the latest call is 11:45 p.m.

And what's he asking you? 

Burgum: He says, ‘Oh, I didn't wake you up, did I? And I'm like, ‘Of course not, of course not.’

Just checking on progress.

Burgum: Well, he'll have a list of things: ‘How are we coming on this? How are we coming on that?’ And sometimes it's not about D.C., sometimes it might be like, ‘Are we getting this pipeline built in New York so we can save people in New England $8 billion on their electric bills?’

Cramer: See, what you're learning, Jonathan, from this question of this man, is you're learning why he and Donald Trump get along so well. Because they both are executives at the highest level who know exactly what's going down at the lowest level. They both drill down. How many cabinet secretaries could cite all of the details of one project like Doug just did? They're the same person in many respects in that way. That's what makes it both fun and challenging to work for.

But should the leader of the free world who's running the biggest military in the history of mankind be focused on the Reflecting Pool in Washington, D.C.?

Cramer: Yes. Among several other details.

Why? 

Armstrong: Because it's the center of democracy in the free world. Why do we not want people who come to Washington, D.C.? When I was in Congress, my favorite thing to do was meet with Close Up Foundation kids that are coming up, high school seniors out there. When did it become okay to say, ‘You know what, this isn't going to work. This is too hard to fix.’ The best place to take anybody — with all due respect to the White House, with all due respect to the Senate, with all respect to anybody else — is the Speaker's Balcony. And you can look out, and a mile away is the Washington Monument. And then a mile after that is the Lincoln Memorial. And those things should be fantastic, and they should be done the way they're supposed to be.

Speaker's Balcony. He's still a House guy.

Cramer: Yeah, me too, in a lot of respects.

Armstrong: It's a better view!

Cramer: I have a rule that I talk to every Close Up kid from North Dakota no matter what, unless I'm not physically there. And the question I was asking was ‘What surprises you the most about this city?’ And I'd say 8 out of 10 of them, the first or second answer is how pretty it is. How clean it is, particularly the last couple of years.

There's somebody else who, under President Trump, calls quite a lot, and that's your good friend from next door, Senator John Thune, the majority leader. You and John Thune were the executive directors of the state GOP in North Dakota and South Dakota at the same time, when you guys were in your 20s, right? 

Cramer: Yeah, the thing is, he still looks like he's in his 20s. I don't. He's one month older than me.

You’ve got to get on that Thune diet and workout plan! So you guys go way back. And again, I mentioned earlier, but South Dakota, like North Dakota back then, was really a pretty heavily Democratic state. Tom Daschle, of course, was senator there, and they had people like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the House. There were many more competitive races back in the day. You and Thune are still close. I know you were instrumental in his becoming majority leader. 

Cramer: Yeah, I couldn't talk him out of it.

The phrase oil and water come to mind when I think of John Thune and Donald Trump, right? 

Cramer: Well, for sure.

They're very different.

Cramer: Particularly in style.

Yes. 

Cramer: Very different. But they also have different jobs, which I think is really important to know. One's an executive, has unilateral power over his universe. The other one has a constituency of 52 people, 51 of whom think they should be president. And then himself. And so, he's got a much more difficult job. I think the two actually respect that context in each other's jobs, but they debate it rather openly sometimes. It can be frustrating.

How so?

Well, in that you're not always certain what the message is from leadership, if you will. But John is almost universally loved by the conference.

Have you tried to smooth that relationship and talk to either Thune and/or Trump about the other and play translator?

Cramer: Let's just put it this way: If I am, I wouldn't talk about it to you.

Because you speak both languages, though. You speak Dakota, but you also speak Trump.

Cramer: I can give you one example. There was a time during the debate on the One Big Beautiful Bill where there was one particular issue that Doug's very familiar with that we were having trouble with. In fact, we couldn't have passed the bill unless we fixed it. I explained something.

What? 

Cramer: I'm not going to tell you. I explained-

Who's gonna watch this!

Cramer: And John Thune said, ‘Does the president know this? Would you please call him?’ I called him, explained it, and in many respects, it paved a way forward.

But the president can't get over the SAVE Act, which is this voter ID bill that he has come to believe is a panacea that's going to save the day for an otherwise tough midterm. Can you or somebody in the Senate GOP who has a good relationship with the president tell him the votes just aren't there for this, and it's not going to happen? Don't get his hopes up so much. 

Cramer: I think he knows the votes aren't there for it unless we blow up the filibuster. That's the bigger philosophical question. Is there any chance of that happening? There's zero chance of that happening for very good reasons. And the thing that I regret a little bit, Jonathan — if you want to make news, this might do it for you: I regret that the other 25 or 30 people who oppose blowing up the filibuster don't say it out loud like I do. Because it leaves the impression that there are only four or five of us, just enough so that he doesn't have 51. The reality is, almost no senator — particularly from a small state where the Senate exists specifically to give equal representation — the last thing you should do is give up your power.

Do you want to name some names? 

Armstrong: Do you think there's a little bit of being in the House and recognizing what majority rule is? I served in the minority and the majority in the House.

And Cramer was in the House before you.

Armstrong: Yeah. I'm not entirely sure you want that part of that on the U.S. Senate side.

Cramer: Quite honestly, if you think about it for 30 seconds, if you're from, say, the Dakotas, Montana, when you talk about the Dakotas and Thune … Me growing up, at the time we were in our jobs, there wasn't a Republican from Montana in Congress. We were 0-9. Today we're 10-0.

When Obama was president in 2009, of the six senators in the two Dakotas and Montana, five were Democrats. That's 2009!

Cramer: Yeah, not very long ago. That said, again, the founders created the Senate specifically to give equal power in one chamber to every state. And our power in the Senate — and I said this to Donald Trump when he tried to talk me into this crazy job, and I said no so many times — you have to admit senators have more power. And even though their power is derived from their ability to obstruct, it's still power. I'm not giving that up. The people of North Dakota should get rid of me if I’m willing to give that power up.

The filibuster is staying put. 

I wrote something in 2024. I think you guys will recall this piece about the rise of the Dakotas. And it was when-

Cramer: I got it framed on my wall. I can slightly recall it.

It was the summer of ‘24, and the fellow here in the hat to my right was on the short list to become vice president. He got a really good gig instead. But you know, the idea that you can have these two fairly small states plus Montana with some real clout in Washington… Do you think Washington, and frankly, do you think the Republican Party would be better off if it was led by Dakotans? We'll start with you. 

Cramer: If you turn the country over to North Dakota and South Dakota and maybe we'd switch off every couple of years, running the place, the rest of the country would say ‘Thank you.’

It is less toxic out here, right? 

Armstrong: We spend significantly more time with our voters than most politicians.

Oh, is that what it is?

Armstrong: All three of us. We spend time with our voters. And yes, there's a ton of Midwestern conservatism. There's a ton of Midwest sensibility. But I think that is the one thing that as a senator, a former congressman, former public service commissioner, governor, secretary of interior, former governor, former businessman in the state of North Dakota, we actually enjoy being with our voters, and we actually want to see our voters succeed.

Politics, this is the midterm year. This is obviously a safe GOP state, but it could be a competitive race for the House, your old stomping grounds. The Senate could be up for grabs, too, Sen. Cramer. How confident are you that your party keeps the Senate this fall? 

Cramer: Oh, I'm better than 50-50, I think. But we have to do the heavy lifting, do the hard work.

Is Sen. Thune's job in trouble if you guys lose the Senate?

Cramer: Well, if we lose the Senate, he'd have to be a minority leader. I don't think his leadership position is in jeopardy. People know he's doing what he needs to do for the benefit of the majority, and they're committed to that. So no, I don't think he's in any jeopardy, even if we lose the majority. And as the next leader.

And the next leader, is it John Barrasso or is it Tom Cotton after Thune? 

Cramer: Listen, I don't want to say no, because I want them to take me out for dinner.

You know it's a hard question when even Cramer dodges it!

Cramer: I wait to see who's going to buy me the most dinners.

Last word from Kelly Armstrong. 

Armstrong: Everybody needs to come see this presidential library. We're all politicians. We love to take credit for this. But this library, the way it is built right now, does not happen without Doug Burgum.