People Think Trump Hallucinated Teddy Roosevelt. The Truth Is Weirder.
President Donald Trump shocked Americans Wednesday when he claimed to have spoken to former President Theodore Roosevelt. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in North Dakota, Trump announced to the crowd that he’d just spoken with the twenty-sixth president, who died more than 100 years ago. “I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt,” Trump said. “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?’”Trump: "I even had a conversation with Theodore Roosevelt. I said, 'What do you think about the Panama Canal? Do you consider that your greatest achievement and how do you feel about the fact that the Democrats gave the Panama Canal away to Panama for $1?'" pic.twitter.com/nP0ox7ensO— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 1, 2026Despite what many people on the internet seemed to think, the 80-year-old president was not publicly sundowning. He was referring to an interaction he’d just had with an eerie, lifelike AI simulation of Roosevelt. A video posted by Margo Martin, a special assistant to the president, showed Trump listening intently as the fake Roosevelt reminded Trump that “the nation comes first.”“Well, I appreciate those words, those words are fantastic,” Trump said. “I just want to say it was an honor to be with you today, we are taking a little bit of a tour of some of the fantastic things you’ve done.”.@POTUS interacts with AI President Theodore Roosevelt at the Theodore Roosevelt Library in North Dakota 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/4ISRo2Tsbj— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) July 1, 2026There’s something deeply sad about watching the forty-seventh president speak to a computer-generated version of the twenty-sixth. It has a similar effect to watching your elderly grandfather chat with a young, hot single on an online forum: It’s not real, grandpa. Now, go back to bed. Trump’s fascination with AI presidents is nothing new. The president’s lackluster Great American State Fair features its own AI George Washington to chat with attendees—what few of them there are.Trump has previously used his praise for Roosevelt to push his agenda to “take back” the Panama Canal—which, along with the threatened annexations of Greenland and Canada, are at the heart of his disastrous “Donroe Doctrine.”