00:00All right, in just a few hours, the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library is going to open to the public.
00:04A long time coming. It's in remote Medora, North Dakota.
00:07That's right, and it doesn't look like a traditional museum.
00:10It blends almost seamlessly into the Badlands, and the structure itself is actually made of rammed earth.
00:15And that's in tribute to the 26th president's passion for nature and conservation.
00:20There's a walking path on top of the structure and, because you can't get enough AI, an AI Teddy Roosevelt
00:26visitors can interact with.
00:27Joining us now is Ravi Lauf. He's director of the museum.
00:32Thank you so much for having us. It's been a big week for you guys.
00:35What is your favorite part of the place you now work?
00:39Well, good morning and happy 250th birthday to the greatest country in the history of the world.
00:43It is an honor to be with you today to celebrate our grand opening, which has been many years in
00:47the coming, as you just mentioned.
00:51My favorite thing is introducing hundreds of thousands of people every day to the Badlands that created TR
00:55and getting them outside because they came to one of the world's most beautiful buildings,
00:59telling the life and legacy of perhaps our greatest president.
01:02So connecting people to the outdoors is what TR would want us to do, and it's what we do right
01:06here in Medora.
01:09Robbie, let me ask you the basic question here I think a lot of people will have, which is why
01:12North Dakota?
01:13Why is this a place that you associate with Teddy Roosevelt?
01:16I think a lot of folks right now probably don't.
01:19Well, the reason is not perhaps best for me. It's best for TR.
01:22He said he would never have been president if it wasn't for his time in North Dakota.
01:26So we decided to build a presidential library to the place that created the man who saved the conservation movement
01:31and created one of the greatest treasures in American history, which is our beautiful national park system.
01:36So he spent a little over two years of his life here, which perhaps is less than New York,
01:40but he said it was where the romance of his life began.
01:43And when he was asked at the end of his life, is there only one place or one time he
01:46could relive?
01:47He would relive his time as a rancher in Dakota Territory.
01:50So perhaps the library could have been built in great American cities like New York or Washington, D.C.,
01:55but we think TR would want it to be at the entrance of the only national park named after a
02:00person in the entire system,
02:01which is TR National Park right here in Medora, North Dakota.
02:07It also seems to go to just the vibes of the man.
02:11I mean, he is associated with wilderness, with conservation.
02:14Rugged individualism.
02:14A rugged guy.
02:16You know, he had asthma as he was a kid, and he did all these sports and things to try
02:19to toughen up,
02:20and that was such a big part of his legacy.
02:22But when you look at this museum, your CEO has called it a digital library for an analog president.
02:28What did he mean by that?
02:30Well, we think that we want to build a 21st century institution that utilized things like AI,
02:35so you could actually have a conversation with TR.
02:37You can go through photo stations that put you in different places across the life and legacy of this incredible
02:44man.
02:44We want to make sure that anybody, if you're in Medora or if you're in Russia or Japan or any
02:51place in the country of the United States,
02:52you can connect online to the entire digital history of perhaps our most writingist president,
02:58the person who used media differently than anyone before, was the first technologically innovative president,
03:02was the first one to ride a submarine, to hop in an airplane, to travel overseas.
03:06This guy looked 150 years into the future.
03:10So does this institution.
03:12So we are trying to not only look back at history, but be a 21st century cultural institution that connects
03:18you to a whole new wave of technology.
03:21So we want this to be a museum that kids drag their parents to, not parents drag their kids to.
03:26So TR was a kid himself.
03:28I mean, he was as active as anybody.
03:30He was the youngest president in American history.
03:31So we're using forward-thinking technology to tell that story, to reconnect a new generation of people to American history
03:38and perhaps to innovate an entire industry.
03:43Robby, I can't help but bookend this with the opening of President Obama's museum and library just a few weeks
03:48back.
03:48And, you know, throughout that whole process of its design and construction, the former president integrally involved.
03:54He was there for the opening.
03:55There were all kinds of events.
03:56He met with schoolchildren.
03:57He was there.
03:58And, of course, that can't happen with your museum and library, Teddy Roosevelt long dead.
04:02And I'm curious sort of how that complicated the process, if it did, how it changed the process at the
04:07very least, not having to kind of reckon with the man being alive at this moment.
04:11How did that change the process for you?
04:13Well, we're talking about a president who's long been judged by history as one of the greatest Americans in history.
04:18So while we didn't have T.R. himself, who perhaps it might be very helpful to have him in this
04:24modern world today, we had his great-great-grandson.
04:26We had his great-grandson involved in the project.
04:28We have the entire Roosevelt family, generations of institutions and people who care about this person, from the Theodore Roosevelt
04:34Association to the American Museum of Natural History.
04:37So it was a unique challenge, of course, to build a presidential library to somebody who's been gone since 1919.
04:43But, frankly, what a gift for us to be able to reinvigorate his story into the American story around the
04:50250th birthday of America.
04:52You may not know this, but T.R. was president during America's 125th birthday.
04:56So bookending that conversation with 125 years later having T.R. have an institution opening, celebrating his life on America's
05:05250th is perhaps a bit of kismet.
05:07But we're also doing an institution that is looking 250 years into the future because, like we said, T.R.'s
05:14story is a little bit baked in at this point.
05:16But it has never been more relevant than it is today and perhaps more needed.
05:20He's the favorite president of Josh Hawley on the right and Elizabeth Warren on the left.
05:25Ninety-five percent of Americans have a positive view of T.R. and I haven't really met anybody in the
05:29other five percent.
05:30So we think it's a unique opportunity to connect people to somebody who is just transformational in his impact and
05:36legacy.
05:37And we wish he was here still today.
05:39But if not, his great-grandson will work just fine.
05:44I mean, they might be out there, but when they hear what your job is, I doubt they're going to
05:47tell you to your face.
05:48You have a lot of enthusiasm for this guy.
05:50I wouldn't want to cross you on this topic.
05:53Of course, the president was there earlier this week, and he spoke about T.R., as you call him, with
05:58a lot of admiration.
05:58Take a listen.
06:00He had great passion.
06:01The colonel, they called him, was an American man.
06:05He was really a great he-man.
06:08He was an American man through and through.
06:11His chest swelled with American optimism, confidence, enthusiasm, pride.
06:17His heart beat with an unyielding sense of America's destiny and pride.
06:26President Trump sees a lot of similarities between himself and Teddy Roosevelt.
06:29And there are some, you know, I think, about big-stick diplomacy, similar stance on the Panama Canal.
06:33But when it comes to nature and conservation, these two men have very different perspectives.
06:37How do you kind of reconcile that?
06:41Well, T.R. is kind of a Rorschach test, if you think about him.
06:45What you see in him almost says about you more about you than it says about him.
06:50There's been many different efforts to connect people and American figures to T.R.'s life and legacy.
06:54But President Trump's visit here is the highest public-ranking official to visit Medora since T.R. himself.
06:59This special place is all about the outdoors.
07:02It's about conservation.
07:03And conservation wasn't much of a movement until T.R. put it to the forefront.
07:07So this institution, this president, President Donald J. Trump, and T.R. himself are all utilizing this place to connect
07:15to the outdoors, a new generation of people.
07:17So it's your job, of course, to compare that president and our modern-day president to each other.
07:24But what we're trying to do is tell people to connect themselves and compare themselves to T.R.
07:28To a man who was deeply sad when he lost his wife and his mother on the exact same day,
07:33February 14, 1884.
07:35He took his diary out and said, the light has gone out of my life.
07:38And what did he do?
07:39He went to Medora to heal.
07:41He used nature to reconnect with his potential.
07:44We think President Trump is inspiring a new generation of Americans to go to nature by coming to Medora, by
07:51showing this place.
07:51There are thousands of places on Earth that have mountains, thousands that have beaches.
07:55There's only one place with a bad land.
07:57Okay.
07:58There's an incredible legacy that he has and T.R. can have.
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