Trump announces $750,000 for North Dakota's TR Library, compares himself to Roosevelt in Medora speech

President Donald Trump's popularity has been waning nationwide recently but he received a warm welcome from a packed crowd at Medora's Burning Hills Amphitheater on Wednesday, unsurprising in a state where his popularity remains on solid ground.

The president was in North Dakota for the dedication of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, which has its grand opening Saturday, July 4, at 10:27 a.m., aligning with Roosevelt's birth date of Oct. 27, 1858. During the visit Trump announced federal aid for the facility, and personally brought a Roosevelt memento for display.

North Dakota has voted for Trump in each of the last three presidential elections by more than 60% each time. Though recent national polls show Trump's approval rating has slipped — an Economist poll released June 30 showed a 37% approval rating — North Dakotans' support for the president has proven more durable. As of late April, 56% of North Dakotans said they approve of Trump's performance as president, according to a poll from the North Dakota News Cooperative.

Those North Dakota supporters turned out in force for Trump's speech Wednesday, with standing room only at the Burning Hills Amphitheater, which seats roughly 2,850 people, according to Medora's website.

Trump touched down in Bismarck just after 10:30 a.m. It was the inaugural flight of a new Air Force One, a luxury jet gifted by the government of Qatar and extensively retrofitted by the U.S. Air Force to serve as the president's plane. The previous Air Force One planes had been in service for 35 years.

Trump took the Marine One president helicopter to Medora and then boarded a BNSF America250 commemorative train decorated in red, white and blue, arriving at the base of the road up to the library by rail at the same place Roosevelt came off the train when he arrived in Medora in 1883, according to Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library spokesperson Matt Briney.

Trump received a tour of the library from Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library CEO Ed O'Keefe before his speech and said the tour ran longer than he expected.

"I thought it would be maybe 10 minutes, five minutes," Trump said in his speech. "I've been doing this for two hours. Thank goodness I love the subject, or I would not have put up with it."

The $450 million library has been under construction for roughly three years, but advocates have been working toward its creation for roughly a decade. Proponents say they believe it will be a strong tourism driver for the state.

It has been a special interest of Interior Secretary and former North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, who has advocated and raised money for the project. Burgum introduced Trump at Wednesday's event.

Also preceding Trump at the Burning Hills Amphitheater were Gov. Kelly Armstrong and Secretary of the Navy Hung Cao.

Armstrong and Burgum drew parallels between Roosevelt and Trump in their remarks Wednesday, as did Trump himself.

"His heart beat with an unyielding sense of America's destiny and pride, and that pride was bigger," Trump said. "He was a proud man, but I'm a proud man. I'm proud of our country. Years ago, we had a country that was a laughingstock all over the world, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world, the most respected."

He spoke about Roosevelt's push to create the Great White Fleet and said America would be building more ships soon. He referenced the creation of the Panama Canal under Roosevelt and said Democrats "gave it away" for $1.

"And now China is trying to take over the Panama Canal, and we're not going to let that happen," Trump said.

Some groups, including Save Our Parks and the Dakota Resource Council, say Trump and Burgum are undermining Roosevelt's conservation legacy by weakening the national park system and eliminating protections on public lands in favor of fossil fuel energy development.

"Under Burgum's 'leadership,' our parks and public lands have become just another pot of money for the President's wish fulfillment," said Jayson O'Neill, a Save Our Parks spokesperson. "American families visiting their favorite parks this summer will find them understaffed and in disrepair."

As part of his speech, Trump announced that he had delivered Roosevelt's Congressional Medal of Honor to the library for display. Roosevelt was awarded the medal posthumously in 2001 for his actions during the Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. The medal has hung in the Roosevelt Room in the White House alongside Roosevelt's Nobel Peace Prize and is now displayed in the library next to the Congressional Medal of Honor awarded posthumously to Roosevelt's son, Brig. Gen. Theodore Roosevelt Jr., for his actions during D-Day in World War II.

Trump also announced that the National Endowment for the Humanities will award the library $750,000 to support opening exhibits during its first year.

Trump organized his speech around five things Roosevelt reveals about America and Americans, drawing on stories from Roosevelt's life to illustrate each point. First, that Americans never give up, speaking about how sickly Roosevelt was as a child and how he pushed past his illness to live the life he wanted.

"He was told 'You'll have to have a very quiet life, you have to be nice and easy,' and he did just the opposite, he had a freaking wild life," Trump said.

Second, Trump said Roosevelt reminds the country that a free nation requires courage, telling the story of how Roosevelt faced down and killed a bear when attacked. Third, he said Roosevelt believed in a nation that worked hard and refused to accept failure, mediocrity, corruption or decline, and "neither should we." Fourth, he said Roosevelt believed in an America that "thinks big" and referenced Roosevelt's famous "I like big things" speech given in Dickinson on July 4, 1886. He said America needs to be as ambitious as Roosevelt was.

Trump veered away from the topic of Roosevelt at points during his speech, expressing frustration with the Supreme Court's recent decision on birthright citizenship but lauding its ruling in another case; calling Democratic Socialists "communists"; and joking about giving himself and his sons the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Trump wrapped his speech without reaching his fifth point, winding down abruptly shortly after one of the roughly 25 men dressed as Rough Riders behind him appeared to pass out on stage. Roosevelt's Rough Riders were the military unit he led in the Spanish-American War in 1898.

The Rough Rider reenactor was not the only one to drop on Wednesday. Trump delivered his roughly hour-long remarks just after 2:30 p.m., when the temperature was in the mid-80s in Medora, with little to no wind or cloud cover and no shade at the venue.

At least two audience members were helped out of the crowd by medical staff and Secret Service agents while Trump was speaking. In total, 45 people required assistance from event medical staff for heat-related incidents, according to Melissa Richard, a Billings County Sheriff's Office spokesperson. She told the Tribune that EMS personnel were prepared for the heat with cooling tents and pre-staged water at the venue.