Live from the TRPL #5: TR’s Legacy in Government with Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Kevin Cramer

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

I think the moment we live in now is challenging because of so many forces that sort of disincentivized this. In fact, you're rewarded more for being a jerk than you are for being a friend. But I hope this place, that the next several speakers, not just this weekend, but forever, can absolutely build on that theme. And I'll bring everybody I can to participate in that.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Welcome to Live from the TRPL on Good Citizen, a podcast from the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library. I'm Ted Roosevelt. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library officially opened its doors on July 4th, 2026. And in the days leading up to it, the brand new auditorium hosted some really special talks, interviews, and panel discussions. These featured a striking lineup of voices, including historians, conservationists, architects, and political leaders. I wanted to give our podcast listeners a chance to hear some of these great speakers. So we've put together a short series, six episodes over six weeks, and this one's an important one. You should know that the library was not designed just to tell the story of Theodore Roosevelt, but to ask what his life and example demand of us now? How do we lead? How do we serve? How do we strengthen the country that we share? That work begins frankly with conversation, especially the kind of conversation that is too rare today.

Honest, substantive, and grounded in the belief that disagreement does not have to mean disrespect. That spirit is particularly fitting for this episode, featuring senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Kevin Cramer, two public servants who come from different states and different parties, but who have both devoted their careers to serving the American people. You'll hear them marvel at what conservation can unlock across party lines, but also worry about how TR's model of leadership involving service, compromise, and bipartisanship can work for us now. How do we carry that vision forward when our politics so often reward division and concentrate power? Together they represent something that the library hopes to model that even amid real differences and these differences are real, Americans can still sit together, listen seriously and wrestle with the questions that will shape our future. The senator's conversation is guided by Rye Barcott, veteran, entrepreneur, author, and civic leader whose own life has been defined by service and by the conviction that citizenship is an active responsibility.

Let's get to it.

RYE BARCOTT:

Good morning, guys. Wow. What an occasion. The 250th and we're here in Medora in the heart of the Badlands. By the way, please excuse the fact we got business casual as the code, but I was in the campsites last night with my family, and so we had a strenuous life experience at 1:00 AM. And it was a real reminder of the lifestyle that we live today is obviously very different from when Theodore Roosevelt and many others were in this land. And I'm sure we'll chat about this in this great conversation. Senator Cramer, Senator Gillibrand, thank you for being here. If we could just start off with what brings you here today? Why did you decide to spend your part of the 250th here at the opening of the Theodore Roosevelt Library?

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Well, this is an easier answer for me than it is probably for Kirsten, but first of all, I was tourism director for four years. Most fun you can have at work. And I couldn't have envisioned something this cool when I was tourism director and we're the least visited state in the nation and we're being made fun of by everybody. So I can't imagine being anywhere else but here on this weekend. It's just such a special time. And plus it's a great pleasure for me to be able to welcome my friends from New York who I do love and love working with to include Senator Gillibrand and Congressman Swazi, who was with us yesterday. And so for no other reason, just to host my good friends.

RYE BARCOTT:

And Congressman Swazi, I understand took a bipartisan group on a bike ride through the Badlands yesterday. Good way to kick it off. And Senator Gillibrand, how about for yourself? Obviously many deep ties for President Roosevelt to New York, but what made you decide to come here with your family?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Well, Teddy Roosevelt is a larger than life New Yorker. He was somebody who was born in New York. He raised his family in New York and he was actually sworn in to the presidency in New York, one of only two presidents to be sworn in in New York. Him and who? President Washington. Yes. So it's a wonderful way to celebrate our 250th anniversary. I also have great fondness for Teddy Roosevelt because he's my favorite president. When I read lots of presidential biographies, I was most inspired by his resilience, his courage, his willingness to take on the tough fights of his time and his willingness to really look for a long lasting legacy. I think the national parks is one of the greatest gifts he could have given to humanity, to our mental health, to our wellbeing, to our strength as a nation, and recognizing what made this country so different than any other country around the globe.

And that legacy really lives on in New York. I spend lots of my free time, my vacation time, my family time in the Adirondacks, and he was climbing our highest peak, Mount Marcy, in the moment that McKinley was shot. So we've been living his legacy for a very long time and it's just always been an inspiration to me. And even my oldest son is named after Teddy Roosevelt. His name is Theodore.

RYE BARCOTT:

You're here. He's in the audience.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Because of our love for Teddy Roosevelt. And then in addition to all the New York —

RYE BARCOTT:

By the way, no pressure.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Yeah, no pressure. In addition to all the New York factors, I'm also very close to Simon Roosevelt and his wife Lily and their wonderful family, his daughter Alice, and we are so happy to be here with them celebrating such a really important moment for his family and for him.

RYE BARCOTT:

Well, hats off to all the family members. It is hard to get things done in the United States. And the family, of course, starting with the contribution of land from Theodore Roosevelt IV, who is a Vietnam veteran and Navy SEAL, and throughout this time just persisted to build this national treasure. And on that note, Senator Gillibrand, this is your first time here in the land. As we were driving out, started the audiobook of Edmund Morris's wonderful, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, where he writes evocatively of this place and listened to it with my 13-year-old and six-year-old. What has this place been like as an experience for you coming to it for the first time?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Well, as it was for Teddy Roosevelt, it is clearly a place of healing. When you come here, you see some of God's most beautiful creation and you very much feel part of the land and you feel that this glorious place is something that should be for all generations. It's not surprising he came here to mourn the loss of his first wife and his mother. It's not surprising that he came here to strengthen himself, to strengthen his mind, his soul, and his spirit. And the Edmund Morris book is the first presidential biography I ever read. And it was one of the most just life-changing books for me because I could read about a man who had to overcome so much at a very young age, but then watch how over his whole lifetime he learned from every opportunity he had and it made him a stronger, better, more thoughtful person.

And I very much try to be that kind of leader myself.

RYE BARCOTT:

It is such an extraordinary book. And of course we had the kickoff here with the great Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose introduction I believe will be available at this library and is just spectacular from yesterday. Going through the exhibit personally, there's so many moments within this library, but the one that is most poignant for me was walking into that black room and seeing the original diary smaller than the size of our hand and the X from after Theodore Roosevelt's mother and wife passed away within a 12-hour period of time. And he wrote, "The light has gone out of my life." And Edmund Morris writes about how he decided to come to North Dakota for healing and to use the land as a way to process grief. Senator Cramer, you have experienced extraordinary grief. Can you maybe share with us how this land, your state has impacted your life as you lead and process grief?

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

For sure. Thanks. You're right. Our family has. And I think it's this place that we talk about that drew Roosevelt here to heal has the same effect on just about everybody that comes here. In fact, one of the biggest challenges when you're the tourism director of the least visited state in America is to get them here the first time. As a senator, I have the opportunity to bring 50 or more every year for a weekend, and most of them have never been here. In fact, the first time, I don't think any of them had ever been here. Not more of them come on a regular basis because they bring their families and they encourage other people to come with. And then when they're in this place, this place being the Badlands of North Dakota, they get it immediately. They get it immediately, the calm of it, even the isolation of it.

And isn't it great that they celebrated this incredible building by blending it into the place with the same integrity that Harold Shaffer protected this place, the bluffs and the view sheds, all of it gets back to the original creator of this place. And I think when God created this place, that he knew that there would be a president who needed to heal someplace. And so yeah, for Chris and me and for our family, getting out into nature, going on a hike in the Badlands or even around Bismarck, Mandan or wherever we might be, we love to go on hikes. And I think that's part of it is just the escape. But as much as anything, the presence of God is so much closer in his creation. The closer you are to his creation, the closer you feel to him.

RYE BARCOTT:

Well, it is certainly a spiritual place, and especially when the wind is whipping and the lightning is cracking as we had yesterday evening.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

I posted last night, I've shot some lightning for about 10 seconds. I said, "God's showing off. God's shooting off some fireworks tonight for us."

RYE BARCOTT:

And in the backstage, we just watched your entire video from that drone show last night, which was also a marvel of not only writing, but of technological process.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

It sure was. And I would say there was a moment last night during all the rain, thank God I wasn't crazy enough to go camping, but during all of that rain, I though, "Boy, it'd been good to escape early until the drone show." I thought, "Boy, I'm glad that I got to stay late."

RYE BARCOTT:

Just one point of correction. It was glamping. It's actually glamping, but glamping takes a different dimension in the bad lands. Senator, before we turn to the legacy of Theodore Roosevelt, you had a role in bringing this to creation. Can you just share with us what it took from your perspective to create this new national treasure?

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Well, first of all, my role wasn't that great because it's a role that anybody in my positions at any given time would've done. So I was just sort of doing my job. I may have had a little more passion than some. Did I mention I was the tourism director for the least visited state in America? So I might had a little more passion for it, but several things. I mean, things as basic as getting the archives to release certain artifacts and documents or the Library of Congress, as you've already referred to the diary. And not that they didn't want to do that, but there's a lot of bureaucracy about it. I mean, I'd go all the way to just this week when due to real life circumstances, the Air Force's flyover had to be canceled, which I get the calls, I start the text messages.

I called the Secretary of War. I called the commander of ACCA said, "You got to have a North Dakota airplane coming tomorrow this weekend." And then some things that the land swap required a lot change. It required legislation. This was federal land. We have other federal land. All this land is used by our ranchers to feed their cattle, to help feed a hungry world. Navigating that with the type of integrity that Roosevelt would expect, but also that the local ranchers would respect was important. And so there are lots of ways that I was able to play a small role.

RYE BARCOTT:

Well, Bravo, to all involved and thanks to the community as well. And by the way, for those of you tuning in, this is a live recording, steak fondue dinners, pitchfork barbecue dinners right here, right before you can come to the Teddy Roosevelt Library. There's nothing quite like a Pitchfork barbecue.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

We had a good time having that last night.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

You really haven't eaten a steak till you've eaten one that's been put on a pitchfork after it cleaned the barn and it goes, but don't worry, the oil's about 400 degrees.

RYE BARCOTT:

Also strenuous life. All right. So Theodore Roosevelt, let's talk about President Roosevelt, the citizen. And he had so many roles in his life of public service, which is so well told here. But he was a Republican who was very much an iconoclast. He attacked the trusts, of course, focused very heavily on corruption as he saw it, the promotion of merit. I love how the word merit is throughout this building. He was a conservationist, one of the early conservationists. He helped establish the FDA. There's a wonderful exhibit in here where there's an advertisement from back at the turn of the century about toothache medicine for kids. And it has this wonderful ingredient, at least that's the way the ad puts it, as cocaine. So they were using cocaine for kids' teeth at the time, many other pieces in his transformative life. What part of his understanding of government do you think is most needed in Washington now from each of your perspectives?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Well, he very much believed that it was for and by the people. And his earliest days, he was someone who railed against corruption, railed against the insider, railed against too much accumulation of power. So he wanted a merit-based system. He didn't want people just who you know. He very much focused on how to bring good government to bear. He also, over the life of his public service, matured. I think Doris made a good point about this yesterday in her speech, that while as a young person, he was constantly fighting against those in power, he eventually learned that I have to work with everyone. And what I really like about his trajectory in public service is that by the time he became president, he understood a lot of his role was to bring people together, that he had to work on a bipartisan basis to get meaningful legislation done.

He always believed that you have to put the people first, that our job is service, that we are here to help one another, to care about our brothers and sisters, love one another. And I thought that was very much the through line throughout everything he accomplished in his life to put others first. And that's very much what I try to do in public service today. I try very hard to work on a bipartisan basis so that we can write laws that will stay on the test of time. If you start from a place of agreement between two senators from different states, from different political backgrounds, you're going to build something that most people are going to want and benefit from. And that's how I've always looked at public service. And I think that is very much what Teddy Roosevelt though about public service. He wanted people to be the man in the arena.

He wanted people to participate. He believed in getting people involved and engaged because it was their civic duty. And I think that's something that certainly Kevin and I can play out every day in our lives that we here as public servants, our job is to help people and find those common sense, common ground solutions that can actually make a difference.

RYE BARCOTT:

I love to, as we were watching the drone show that you paused and you said, yes, that, the man and of course now the woman in the arena and what he did to push for equal rights. Senator Cramer, similarly.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

So first of all, I have to say, listening to Senator Gillibrand, it's really important to know Senator Gillibrand does have a lot of those qualities. And one of them that we haven't talked about is persistence. So when I first became a baby freshman senator on the Armed Services Committee, she had this crazy idea that women in the military should be protected from the bad people. And how dare she? And I listened to her carefully and I though, well, maybe the time's not quite right. I wanted to learn a little more about this. By about the third year, I was all on board and I was voting for it. And by the way, everything's okay. She did good work caring about everybody in the arena and won a lot of us over. And there's more of that that goes on, by the way, than you'll ever read about on the internet because it's not that sexy.

But I think the moment we have now is that lesson gets to be amplified in the context of Theodore Roosevelt. And we can look at it and say, "Hey, it can still work today." The problem I think, and I think expanding on what Kirsten's talking about, I think the moment we live in now is challenging because of so many forces that sort of disincentivized this, that in fact, all the incentives for each politician are perverse to this. In fact, you're rewarded more for being a jerk than you are for being a friend. And so we have to work on that by example, but I hope this place, that the next several speakers, not just this weekend, but forever, can absolutely build on that theme. And I'll bring everybody I can to participate in that. We are self-governed after all. We're self-governed, you guys. It's your fault.

RYE BARCOTT:

There's a wonderful profile of Senator Gillibrand on 60 Minutes, and it shares that in your first district, your home district, there were more cows than Democrats. And it also speaks about your mother who is a hunter. I understand she brings home the turkey that she actually shoots for Thanksgiving. Conservationism is one of these areas where there is still opportunities to really get things done in a bipartisan basis. Of course, this land we're reminded of also tells a story, a bleak story of the risks of not protecting wildlife as well as the land with regard to the bison that Theodore Roosevelt came out to initially hunt. They were all decimated by a federal decree. What are some of the opportunities that each of you see in conservationism? How do you think about it as a topic that can actually continue to move forward on a bipartisan basis in DC?

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Well, I think it's a uniting issue, to be honest with you. And again, Roosevelt and his message plays a key role in that. Now I think, and Roosevelt was pretty clear about this, you have to judge a leader in the context of their time. Theodo Roosevelt, of course, saw government as part of the solution. Since that time, government has become a barrier to some of the very things that he would've advocated for. I'm not going to suppose to know anything that he would be saying about this today. However, I do think it's an opportunity, and I'll give you a real specific example right now, and that is we talked a lot about permitting reform. So depending on where you are, permitting reform is helping me build my pipeline. Other places, it's helping me get a new highway or expand a highway. Other places, it's building a factory.

Other places, it's putting up an offshore wind farm or a transmission line from a solar farm in New Mexico. And the good news about that is that all of those things are important, but they don't have the same constituencies. And so one of Cramer's convictions is that not every transaction requires a loser. I think in the context of whether it's conservation or environmental protection or it's the demand for more energy, the moment is right. Sheldon White House, not exactly a right winger. One of the most reasonable pro-environment people I know and will get to work with on the environment and public works committee on this issue. Same with Martin Heinrich, a Democrat from New Mexico. You are seeing literally right now as we speak coming together, if we can just work enough days the rest of this year to get her done, where I think conservation is sort of the tie that binds.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I agree with that. In New York State, some of the biggest issues of conservation are entirely nonpartisan, things like invasive species, making sure we have better requirements for how we fight against that. We have the Great Lakes Commission. How do we make sure that when boats come into the Great Lakes, they don't have village that is from the ocean that's going to bring in some invasive species to destroy the Great Lakes. So there's a lot of conservation and preservation that is entirely nonpartisan today to make sure that we are stewards of the land. One of the things that Kevin and I do is we go to Bible study once a week together and we go to a prayer breakfast once a week together. And when we look at Genesis, we are asked to be the stewards of all the animals and all of God's creation.

We are not asked to destroy it. We're not asked to ignore it. We're literally asked to be the stewards. And so when we work on these pieces of bipartisan legislation to steward the beauty that we have been given in this wonderful land, it is a calling. It is a commission. It is something that we are certainly, Kevin and I as people of faith are asked to do by our faith. And that's exciting because you can feel not only more energized about it, but you also feel that common ground so deeply and it makes it a nonpartisan issue. And so we work on a lot of conservation legislation in the Farm Bill. Farmers and ranchers love the conservation programs, the EQIP program, because it's just free money to conserve whatever you have on your lands, whatever way that you can use it to make sure you prevent wildfires, to make sure you keep your water and air clean.

They're so excited to do it because the point made yesterday by the environmental panel that Simon was on was that 70% of our wildlife and our land is owned by private owners. And so being able to give ranchers and landowners and farmers the tools they need to be those great stewards is something that we can work on on a bipartisan basis and do quite naturally.

RYE BARCOTT:

I love how the museum has brought this to light in one of the first exhibits where you have letters from Theodore Roosevelt to his beloved father. And in one of them, he's asking his father to bring back supple jacks for his display in his room where he's recreating essentially his own kind of ecosystem in his room. And he writes, he's only 10 years old and he writes about these observations, the greenness of the trees in April after winter months had just been there. And that beauty of nature hopefully is something that can really connect with more Americans as well. And hopefully this place will extend that.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

For sure. I mean, it's a perfect place to have that conversation. I know that for Secretary Burgum, his vision for this facility as much as anything was to have that very discussion on a regular basis, the coexistence of commerce and environmental protection and stewardship. And I think he succeeded to this point. Yeah, for sure.

RYE BARCOTT:

Another part of the exhibit, of course, gets into some of Theodore Roosevelt's ideas that he used the bully pulpit to promote. And one of the most enduring of those is the notion of the square deal. The square deal was about fairness for workers, consumers, small business owners against concentrated power. 120 years later, who is the modern American who needs the square deal the most in each of your opinions, and what does Congress owe to them?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I'd suggest everybody needs a square deal and that those principles that Teddy Roosevelt was fighting for then are the same principles we should be fighting for today. And a lot of the work that Kevin and I have worked on together does exactly that. One of the bills we worked on together was for our first responders. When our first responders are in the line of duty and are either made very ill because of toxins they breathe in as firefighters or die of any service related death, they weren't getting their benefits. They weren't being covered at all. And so Kevin and I and a lot of other people got together to fix that problem. But fairness and making sure that we protect our constituents is something that we can work on in all sorts of avenues every day. And it is really why I feel I'm called to public service to just help people protect them in ways they need protecting.

Kevin and I also do a lot for the war fighter. We do a lot on the armed services committee and thank you for your service to really protect our men and women who serve, who devote everything, they'll give their lives for this country. It's very important that we constantly are putting ourselves in their own shoes and seeing what can we do to make their lives better. And so we spend a lot of time on the armed services committee working on things to help the service member.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Yeah. And I would say particularly for small business, probably the richness of this question in this place again is before Roosevelt got here, the marquee had already started building his empire, which was of course a slaughterhouse, a meat packing industry. Because of the new invention of the refrigerated rail car, he was going up against the big Chicago meat packers. Well, I would submit today, if you're going to pick out one industry that needs a square deal, it's agriculture. And I would say about the ranchers, no offense to the ranchers, but they don't complain enough. You know what I mean? And so they don't get as many square deals. But in Roosevelt's time, the government was the solution. They needed a protector, creating the agencies to provide that light touch regulation to level the playing field. Since that time, we've sort of unleashed the federal government to a point where they've now become part of the problem for if you're a new startup company or you have an idea of slaughtering your own cattle for custom meat packing, oh, you can't quite do that.

So we work a lot on programs like that where the government's not so much the solution as it is the problem. And rather than break up consolidation, I'd rather give opportunity to new growth. And so I think there's a lot to talk about, but I'd say right now for us in this community, in this state, agriculture would be a very specific entity that needs a square deal when the world is sort of against us in that regard.

RYE BARCOTT:

Yes. And Roosevelt, on this note, he rebuilt trust in government at a remarkable time, my organization with honor, which helps Elect and support veterans across party lines that take a pledge to work together and do exactly what you all have been doing, which is hard and where the incentives aren't aligned these days, but to serve with the courage to actually work across party lines, even when you don't agree on specific issues, still have trust and work through them. Trust is at an all time low. I think Gallup, which we partner with to measure trust in veterans, veterans and nurses are the only two groups that have majority trust across party lines right now in the United States. And across our public institutions, they're at historic lows. I believe that Congress ranked slightly below that of used car salesmen recently for the first time.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

We're always below them.

RYE BARCOTT:

[CRAMER^But it's close. It's close.] Not new information. I thougt it was breaking something. I mean, honestly, thank you for serving. You're two senators among a hundred. What honestly is within your power to do something about restoring trust and faith in institutions and maybe encouraging more Americans to serve in the public? And how do you approach just the roles that you have and what you can do about them?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Well, I have a couple ideas that are hard to do because they're not popular yet, but they will be. One is I really believe in getting money out of politics. And this is a legal issue that... Yeah. So some people say money is speech and I don't think it is. And they also say that corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals, and I don't think that's true either, but that is a law today. I think if we had the choice, at least the choice that candidates could run as publicly funded candidates where they wouldn't raise any money, they would just ask voters for something called a democracy dollar. It would be a voucher that says, "I will invest whatever the voucher's worth, $100, $250, whatever it is, in your campaign because you asked me and I like you." So you would never be talking to donors, you'd be only talking to voters.

And so it would change where you spend your time as opposed to just constantly doing large fundraisers and raising money for your parties. You'll be talking to voters and they have to be voters in your race. And that just would change the whole outlook. That's a very big idea and it would take a long time for me to make that popular, but it's something I truly believe in. If you were able to get money out of politics, you would have more candidates who were fighting for the people because the people they'd be talking to are the voters over and over and over again. The second idea is deal with the corruption in Washington. And one idea that really time has come is no member of Congress should be able to own stocks. I think you should ban stock trading because right now, this is very funny, members of Congress, one in three own stocks, one in seven are not disclosing their stock ownership the way they're supposed to.

And an average member of Congress has a return rate of 17.5% higher than the S&P 500. So do you think those members of Congress are smarter than the S&P 500? Probably not, but they have a lot of non-public information. And so 10 years ago I passed a law that made everyone disclose when they bought their stocks, figuring that would solve the problem. But with the data I just shared with you, that has not solved the problem. So today I work on a bipartisan basis with a couple different senators, Josh Hawley and Ashley Moody on trying to ban members of Congress from buying or owning stocks because I just think the appearance is so high that members of Congress are getting rich on non-public information. We should change the law.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Can I just... Once again, Kirsten has demonstrated that I'm below average.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

It's not true. It's not true.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

So first of all, I do believe disclosure is the biggest issue, but disclosure without transparency isn't disclosure at all. I've never traded a stock in my life, much less since coming to Congress and I certainly haven't figured out how to get rich doing it, but that's why we're here. I would submit to you, besides some of those legislative fixes that Kirsten's talking about that may or may not work, I think there's probably a balance in there somewhere, but is this, is example. One of the things we can do and should do from our perch, if you will, from our bully pulpit is set the example for others to see. The problem is, the few dozen people that are watching this, maybe no, maybe there's several hundred, maybe there's a million, but we need to do more of this type of thing because what we do in Washington like this isn't very interesting to the people that are covering Washington.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Yes. The clicks and the likes, they only come with division. So if you watch who in Congress gets covered, it's the far left and the far right. The people that are the most often covered are the ones that are constantly fighting and making divides. But does the media ever cover bipartisanship? No. And I've passed so many bills, dozens of bills in the last decade and a half, and that's not what the news media wants to talk about. They'd rather talk about the fight that Marjorie Taylor Greene had with Congresswoman Crockett about eyelashes and being badly built bodies. I mean, it was shocking how much a fight between two women in a hearing was covered versus perhaps the law you and I passed that day that was helping firefighters and first responders. It's shocking that it's just common sense, bipartisanship, getting things done, competence is the least popular thing in Washington to cover.

And that degrades people's view of government. They think that all we do is fight all day long because that's what the social media puts up. That's what the clicks respond to. That's how people get their algorithm to work. It's too bad that algorithms are shaped by division.

RYE BARCOTT:

There was a question that was asked of what president would you most want to have a conversation with? If President Roosevelt was alive today, how do you think he might react to giving each of you advice? What do you think the advice might be of understanding this landscape? We hadn't prepped for this question, so sorry for that.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

I didn't prep for any of them.

RYE BARCOTT:

But how would you think about what a conversation with him might be? And of course, the miracle of this library is that you can actually have that conversation with President Roosevelt thanks to an AI recreation in the library. It's remarkable. You can ask it anything and it sort of channels the voice. But yeah, how would you think about having a conversation with him today and how he might give some advice maybe on this area of our challenges with modern communication?

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

He'd probably think it's the bull moose has finally come to his pinnacle and have another party. I don't know. One of the things that I know about Roosevelt is that he never judged leaders in the context of the current time. He judged them in the context of their time. And that's I think a very important... Because we right away we want to suppose what a historical figure would do today or we judge them unfairly even though they're heroic in their moment because by today's standards, it wouldn't be heroic. So I'd want to be careful not to try to put words in Theodore Roosevelt's. I would ask him, "Where did you muster the courage to take on the establishment the way you did? And how did it turn out so successfully for you?" And I think one of the things he might say, and this is somewhat unfair, but this is the advantage of being the United States senator from a little state.

It's why the founders created the United States senate. Kirsten can't meet with the millions of people that come to Washington to see her. I can meet with just about every North Dakotan that comes to Washington to see me.

And a lot of them come and a lot of them come and that's a bit of an advantage, but the founders created that advantage. That's why when my president says, "I'm foolish to not want to abolish the filibuster," I say, "I'd be crazy to abolish the filibuster." And for the reasons that I just stated, that small states have equal power by the ability of a senator to obstruct the majority. That's the point of it. And so I would say, "What do you think Mr. President Roosevelt? Should we or should we not abolish the filibuster?" And I think he'd stand up for the North Dakota farmer.

RYE BARCOTT:

Beautiful. Well, Theodore Roosevelt bridging both worlds from New York.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I don't know if Theodore Roosevelt ever met with Rand Paul or Ted Cruz, so I don't know. I don't know what his opinion would be. I don't know. Yeah, I don't know.

RYE BARCOTT:

I don't know. Well, you'll have the opportunity to have that conversation. You're about to walk through the —

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I have something to say to your question though. Listening to Doris's speech yesterday, I didn't know all that, but it sounded like Teddy Roosevelt was the master of social media of his era.

So if he himself published over 20 books, so that's a way to get your message out. He himself, when he was a young railer against as a state assembly member, he outperformed all his colleagues because he got every headline because he was the one who went to the floor to make the robust speeches about corruption. It seemed like every part of his career, instead of being the Deputy Secretary of Navy, he went to fight the war instead. And then he writes his book, Rough Riders, and the critique at the time, which Doris brought out said, "It was all about you, dude." He probably was the version of the famous person today. He probably was. He was probably the master of getting your message out in that era by being a prolific writer, by finding the fight and getting the headline. And I think what I really want to ask Doris about later is his maturation was like that got him to his level of success, but he didn't use those skills necessarily once he got there.

And so it's a difference between getting your name ID up and then governing. And I think that is a question we're facing right now.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

For sure.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Because a lot of the famous young leaders that are rising right now are extremely famous because they're very talented on social media. And I would argue that probably was the Teddy Roosevelt. But then as he matured, he seemed to shift his tactic. And I don't know. So I'd ask him those questions. I would ask him, "What do we have to expect? Is it better to become someone who governs or is it better to stay in the spotlight?" And I think he'd say it's better to govern.

RYE BARCOTT:

It's so interesting. There's a lot of emphasis in the exhibit on curiosity and what a curious mind he was and that he was always interested in new technology. And one of the examples of that is when he was police commissioner, they were creating a new way of essentially creating a tracking of criminals, the modern image and demographic information that's provided was breaking at that time. And he was just interested in it. And so he leaned into it and pushed with it. Yeah, maybe he was on the forefront of communication. He certainly recognized the role of the bully pulpit. We have about five minutes left. Senator Cramer, when you went through the exhibit, what are one or two things that you think will just stay with you? Maybe they were surprising, maybe they were just insightful for you, but about President Roosevelt's life.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

So first of all, I have not gone through the exhibits. I'm going to take my time to do that when my head is not on a swivel, but this has been a great week of course to celebrate. But I would say, I kind of go back to where you began with that diary. One of the things about the preservation and the conservation of things, and by the way, I love the fundraising, I love all the success and the interest in private sector and whatnot, but the government has a really important role in preserving history in a legitimate way. And so having that diary in here, the authenticity of the written word in the written hand on the actual paper that you wrote it on speaks volumes to me. And the fact that Roosevelt did write so much, we're going to have — historians are going to look at Kirsten and me and they're going to...

No, she's ambitious enough to have written a book.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I'm writing a third one right now.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

Right now she's on a really good one. But we're going to have a whole bunch of social media for people to read about. And I think about it often. I think about the social media, as I said, goodbye to my son while worshiping in his hospital room. That's what we're going to be judged on too. So I think seeing that written word reminds me every word matters. We're not here just to legislate and we don't even do that very well, but we are here to communicate. And that's again, the value of this place I think that Roosevelt got when he got to know the rancher and the farmer and the shop worker is that each one of these individuals matter. And that's why I do two hours of talk radio unfiltered every week. I have people going, "Oh my God, here he goes again." But it's the value of that is this and bringing this there.

RYE BARCOTT:

Well, this is a good citizen live recording in addition to a panel on the opening of the Teddy Roosevelt Library. Good citizenship. What does it look like for each of you and what would you ask people in this room and people listening to this podcast to do this year?

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

I think getting involved is the most important thing all of us can do to be good citizens, to vote, to get to know your neighbor, to understand your neighbor's perspective, love your neighbor as you love yourself. Those old-fashioned values I think are so important today more than ever. I do think that is very emblematic of who Teddy Roosevelt was. I think as Doris yesterday described how he put together his command and how he had people from every aspect of his life, from members of the Knickerbocker Club to the local rancher, to the farmer, to the shop owner, all working together in his one company for that battle was meaningful. But I do think it's a vision of what America should be. We are strongest when we look at one another as neighbors, as people that can find that common ground, build from the shared values that we have.

And it's definitely the lesson that I learned growing up in upstate New York. My grandmother was somebody who loved getting involved in public service and in politics and community service. She inspired me very much as a young age to look at public life as a way to serve. I remember stuffing envelopes with her and knocking on doors and helping the local candidates, and that inspired me that a way to serve others is through public service. But we can all serve one another through our local communities, through our not-for-profits, through helping the Theodore Roosevelt Library. The whole community came together to do this. Those activities are the most meaningful activities of our lives. The time we spend helping someone else doing something for others is the time that is most valuable, and it's the time that defines who we are and certainly defined who Teddy Roosevelt was.

He was a great thinker and he was a bold thinker, but more than anything else, he was a great servant. He always put others first, and that truly is what his legacy is about.

SENATOR KEVIN CRAMER:

So we really are a reflection of the people we work for. We are a self-governed nation. First and foremost goes back to 250 years ago. That was what Benjamin Franklin, when he said to Mr. Powell, "We have created a republic if we can keep it." He's referring to the activeness activities of the citizenship. So if virtue is the most important quality in a leader, it ought to be the most important quality in the citizen. And I think Roosevelt taught that well. And then as a Dutch reformer, Roosevelt liked Micah, and I've quoted Micah 6A where he said, quoting the scripture itself, of course the prophet himself, "Do justly, love mercy, walk humbly with thy God and carry a big stick." Or something like that.

RYE BARCOTT:

Well, this is about to conclude our session. Thank you to Senators Gillibrand and Cramer. We started by thinking about the word courage. Doris Kearns-Goodwin yesterday mentioned that courage was the virtue that Teddy Roosevelt most aspired toward and appreciated. Little plug, I have just come out with this book on courage. It's called Courage Can Save Us. I've written it for students. It can save us. Yep. Thank you. It can save us as a country, but it can also save individuals. Why? Because courage is the choice to face risk for the common good, not oneself. That's what differentiates it from bravery, for the common good. And Teddy Roosevelt believed that. He lived it. That's why our organization, with honor, which benefits from all the proceeds of the sales of this book, is so delighted to be a partner for the long term with the Teddy Roosevelt Library.

I want to leave you with just some words that are inscribed on the wall. They're these wonderful quotes from Theodore Roosevelt, quite a masterful writer in his own regard, and this is one of them. "In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. "So here are two senators that are doing things and doing things at a difficult time for our country. We so appreciate you. Thank you for joining us.

SENATOR KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND:

Thank you. Thank you.

TED ROOSEVELT V:

Listeners, so glad to have you along for Live from the TRPL, our special six-part series from the library's grand opening. You can find more interviews and talks like these online at trlibrary.com/video, where you'll also see the library's opening ceremony, drone shows, news stories, historical footage, and so much more. Check it out, and thanks for listening.