President Donald Trump addressed attendees on Wednesday during the opening ceremony of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, using the platform to target communism and call for a revival of national pride.
During his speech, Trump emphasized the need to look back at history to guide the country’s future direction. “This is a time to rediscover the indomitable spirit that built our country and all that will ensure America always remains the most exceptional nation on the face of the earth,” Trump said.
Turning his focus to political opponents and ideology, Trump explicitly singled out communists, calling them “a very unattractive lot.”
“We’re not going to let communists get in our way,” Trump stated. “We’re not going to let anyone get in our way. Not the communists. It’s a very unattractive lot. They’re not going to do it. They’re not doing anything. Those people, what they’re doing, it’s so stupid.”
Trump told the crowd that the new library was the ideal venue to launch this cultural rediscovery, drawing direct comparisons to the characteristics of the nation’s 26th president.
“There could be no better place to begin this rediscovery than with the life and times and passions of Theodore Roosevelt,” Trump said. “He had great passion. The Colonel, they called him, was an American man. He was really a great He-Man.”
Trump continued to praise Roosevelt’s character, describing him as “an American man through and through” whose “chest swelled with American optimism, confidence, enthusiasm, pride.” Trump added that Roosevelt’s “heart beat with an unyielding sense of America’s destiny and pride, and that pride was bigger.”
Reflecting on the concept of pride, Trump connected Roosevelt’s legacy to his own perspective on the current state of the United States.
“The biggest word for him, I think, was pride,” Trump said. “He was a proud man. But I’m a proud man. I’m proud of our country. I’m proud that two 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 country anywhere.”
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