Smithsonian American History Museum Embraced ‘Extreme Political Activism,’ White House Report Says
The White House called out the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) for “problematizing” America’s 250th Anniversary and abandoning history for political activism in a report released on Saturday.
Read more The Media’s Not-So-Happy Fourth of July
The 162 page was produced by the White House Domestic Policy Council after a year-long investigation which found that Smithsonian leaders used the NMAH as their “prime tool” to reshape America’s core narratives in the service of a left-wing, revisionist agenda.
The museum’s mission has gone “from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country,” the report’s authors claim.
“As our nation celebrates its 250th anniversary, NMAH has refused to celebrate the Nation and its history,” the report reads. Visitors to the museum would be better served if there were warnings above its entrances that read, “Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.”
From pro-LGBT presentations of sexuality to its discussion of “white supremacy culture,” the report faults the NMAH for clumsily forcing issues like race and gender into entirely unrelated exhibits.
“[T]he Museum’s Interpretive Plan directs staff to, ‘whatever the topic,’ tie exhibits back to a set of seven ‘core issues of our time’—specifically, race/identity, gender/sexuality, climate change, immigration/migrations, economic inequality, technological change, and nationalism/globalism,” the report explains. “The result is that visitors encounter the same ideological storyline over and over again.”
The primary concern noted in the report was a failure to “Substantively Present America’s Founders and Founding.” The report noted that the Pilgrims, Puritans, Founding Fathers, and many other core individuals and events in the America’s founding narrative were severely underrepresented.
Founders like Benjamin Franklin were “introduced chiefly through their connection to slavery,” the report explains, such that their role in establishing the U.S. and even their anti-slavery acts were “minimized or ignored.” Moreover, presidents like George Washington and Abraham Lincoln “appear in didactics that say next to nothing about who they are, let alone why they matter.”
Read more Homeschool Parents See Promise — and Peril — in Artificial Intelligence
The report went into detail about the museum’s misleading and fundamentally inaccurate word choice, providing long lists of specific examples and demanding change.
The report’s authors took issue with the Smithsonian’s removal of “American History” from its mission statement and replacement with therapeutic language that advocates “a more just and compassionate future” where “the complexity of our past” can be explored.
In a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch on August 12, 2025, President Donald Trump announced an “Internal Review of Smithsonian Exhibitions and Materials,” citing a need to ensure that “our national museums reflect the unity, progress, and enduring values that define the American story.” This came after the president’s “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” executive order in March 2025.
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been,” the president said in a Truth Social post on August 19, 2025. “I have instructed my attorneys to go through the Museums, and start the exact same process that has been done with Colleges and Universities where tremendous progress has been made.”
President Trump said the Smithsonian review would have several primary emphases: the public-facing content of the Smithsonian’s exhibitions, its curatorial process, its exhibition planning, its collections, and the narratives driving its curation. The review would investigate eight Smithsonian museums in its first phase, and the president made it clear that there would be a second phase as well.
The president can keep a close eye on the Smithsonian due to the museum’s charter specification that the U.S. Chief Justice and Vice President serve as ex officio members of the Board of Regents. There are also six congressmen on the board, three temporarily appointed by President Trump and three by Speaker Mike Johnson. There are also nine Regents from the general public, two from D.C. and seven from other states.
Read more American Flag to Arrive in D.C. on July 4 After Runners Carried It Nonstop from California
