What a bunch of BS:
A new report from the White House accuses the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism” and blames museum leaders for erasing America’s heritage.
The report, titled “Saving America’s Story” and published Saturday, is the result of an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March 2025 demanding “improper ideology” be eliminated from Smithsonian’s museums.
The report’s “central finding” is that “museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
“To the extent that there is a story told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, it is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country’ but one of regret, tragedy, and shame,” the report adds.
The 162-page report is written by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, led by Vince Haley, who has organized part of the administration’s scrutiny of the Smithsonian and threatened its federal funding.
“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” a Smithsonian spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.
Months after Trump’s executive order, he claimed to have fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, calling her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” The institution asserted its authority over hiring and firing, but Sajet later resigned, saying her presence had become a distraction.
The National Museum of American History has long been among the most scrutinized of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.
In July 2025, it removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit display, as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House, The Washington Post reported at the time. The references were restored a week later. (Mention of the impeachments was also removed this year from a National Portrait Gallery display, which was later revised to include the information in a new format.)
Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, in February. (Allison Robbert/AP)
The White House has launched reviews of the content of several Smithsonian museums, criticized specific exhibits and wall texts and threatened to withhold funds already approved to the institution if it fell short. The Smithsonian has sent over files in return.
But the new report marks yet another escalation. It accuses current Smithsonian leadership of imposing a “radical, activist ideology” on the museums and refusing to tell “the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”
The report pins much of the blame on the history museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, whom it names dozens of times. The Smithsonian did not directly respond to the criticisms of Hartig.
A new report from the White House accuses the Smithsonian‘s National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism” and blames museum leaders for erasing America’s heritage.
The report, titled “Saving America’s Story” and published Saturday, is the result of an executive order President Donald Trump signed in March 2025 demanding “improper ideology” be eliminated from Smithsonian’s museums.
The report’s “central finding” is that “museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
“To the extent that there is a story told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, it is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country’ but one of regret, tragedy, and shame,” the report adds.
The 162-page report is written by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, led by Vince Haley, who has organized part of the administration’s scrutiny of the Smithsonian and threatened its federal funding.
“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” a Smithsonian spokesperson said in a statement Sunday.
Months after Trump’s executive order, he claimed to have fired the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, calling her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” The institution asserted its authority over hiring and firing, but Sajet later resigned, saying her presence had become a distraction.
The National Museum of American History has long been among the most scrutinized of the Smithsonian’s 21 museums.
In July 2025, it removed references to Trump’s impeachments from an exhibit display, as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House, The Washington Post reported at the time. The references were restored a week later. (Mention of the impeachments was also removed this year from a National Portrait Gallery display, which was later revised to include the information in a new format.)
Anthea Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, in February. (Allison Robbert/AP)
The White House has launched reviews of the content of several Smithsonian museums, criticized specific exhibits and wall texts and threatened to withhold funds already approved to the institution if it fell short. The Smithsonian has sent over files in return.
But the new report marks yet another escalation. It accuses current Smithsonian leadership of imposing a “radical, activist ideology” on the museums and refusing to tell “the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”
The report pins much of the blame on the history museum’s director, Anthea Hartig, whom it names dozens of times. The Smithsonian did not directly respond to the criticisms of Hartig.
