Donald Trump Says He Spoke With Theodore Roosevelt About the Panama Canal: ‘The Historians Need Hazard Pay’
Time travel
Many people on social media are having a field day over what they saw Donald Trump say during a recent speech. However, what they don’t know is what happened just moments before that. Still, the reaction to the incident is funny, and conversations surrounding it don’t seem to be ending anytime soon. Here’s what happened.
Donald Trump visited Medora on Wednesday and dedicated a $450 million library and museum in honor of the United States’ 26th president, Theodore Roosevelt. After a short event celebrating this, Trump addressed a crowd, during which he told people that he had spoken to Roosevelt about the Panama Canal. Clips of Trump doing the same made their way to X and other platforms, and people have been talking about it. Most have been making fun of it, noting that Roosevelt had passed away long before Trump was born, making it impossible for them to have interacted. Others emphasized that understanding the context was necessary to make sense of what Trump was saying.
Trump says he spoke with President Roosevelt about the Panama Canal
As previously mentioned, shortly after opening a library and museum dedicated to Theodore Roosevelt on Wednesday in Medora, Trump spoke to a small group gathered for the occasion. During his speech, he mentioned talking to Theodore Roosevelt and said that they discussed the Panama Canal.
Highlighting the details of his conversation with Roosevelt about the Panama Canal, Trump told the audience, “I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt. I said what did you think about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement? How do you feel about the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1?”
What happened exactly before this?
It turns out Trump’s comments about Roosevelt were not out of context. Just before the event, where he mentioned talking to President Theodore Roosevelt, he had indeed spoken to him. However, he didn’t speak to the real Roosevelt, but an AI-generated version of him.
An article published by CNET on July 2, 2026, reports that shortly before addressing the crowd, Donald Trump spoke to an AI replica of Theodore Roosevelt, who was depicted sitting at a desk in the Oval Office. In circulated videos of the incident, Trump can be seen asking Roosevelt’s AI avatar if he considers the Panama Canal his “greatest achievement,” to which the avatar responds with “Well, well, Right then, yes.” Roosevelt’s AI avatar also says other things, mainly in the form of advice for Trump, including telling him to keep his nerve and remember to prioritize the nation.
(featured image: White House Press Gallery)
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