Trump flies on Qatari-gifted plane to Roosevelt Library opening

by · UPI

July 1 (UPI) -- President Donald Trump flew to North Dakota on Wednesday on the new plane given to him by Qatar, his first official flight since the plane was made into Air Force One.

His trip to the state is to visit the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, N.D., in preparation for its opening on July 4.

Trump will likely tour the library, which is 96,000 square feet, and speak Wednesday as part of the 250th birthday of the United States. Trump will also visit Mount Rushmore in South Dakota on Friday before his flight back home to Washington, D.C.

Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, former governor of North Dakota, requested the $450 million project.

The new Air Force One is a refurbished 747-8 with red, white and navy blue and gold paint, a design selected by Trump.

The plane was gifted by Qatar. It's expected to be used until two new Boeing planes that will be ready to go into use in 2028.

Earlier this month, Trump unveiled the new plane. "This is considered the world's most luxurious plane," he said. "When it was built, it was built at a level that will probably never be seen again."

There is another 747-200 in use after another one was retired in mid-June.

Burgum has been touting the president's similarities to the late Roosevelt.

"The parallels between Theodore Roosevelt and President Trump just keep adding up and up and up," Burgum told Fox News. "T.R. was the president at the 125th, President Trump at the 250th -- both of them transformative people who really shaped not just the U.S., but shaped the world and the world order."

In January, Burgum said Trump's Venezuela strikes "can only be compared to Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal 125 years ago," The Washington Post reported.

But others have offered a different historical perspective.

"The irony of this celebration could not be sharper," Aaron Weiss, executive director of the Center for Western Priorities, told The Post. "Donald Trump and Doug Burgum are going to cut the ribbon on a library honoring America's first true conservation president."

But Trump's record, "reads like a checklist assault on everything that Teddy Roosevelt has built," Weiss said.

This week in Washington

News anchors are seen outside the Supreme Court of the United States as the court releases their final opinions before summer recess on Tuesday. The court upheld birthright citizenship and also state laws banning transgender women and girls from playing on school athletic teams. Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo

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