President Donald Trump has ordered the interior department to place signs outside the Smithsonian National Museum of American History cautioning visitors that the institution’s exhibits are inaccurate, escalating his administration’s effort to reshape how the country’s past is presented to the public.
The order, signed Friday and titled Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution, directs Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to coordinate with the National Park Service and Vince Haley, the assistant to the president for domestic policy, to produce temporary signs along the Park Service-maintained sidewalks and walkways leading into the museum. The signs are to notify visitors that the museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings of a recent White House report, and to direct the public to other places where they can find what the administration considers better American history information.
The Smithsonian is largely funded by the federal government and offers free entry to some 15 to 30 million visitors each year across its 21 museums in Washington, Virginia, and New York. Those museums include the National Museum of American History, the National Portrait Gallery, the American Art Museum, the National Zoo, and more than a dozen others.
Accusations of ideological capture
The executive order accuses museum leadership of not doing enough to celebrate America’s founders during the country’s 250th anniversary of independence, which took place on 4 July. It says the leadership team views American history as a prime tool to advance ideas of social justice and what it calls the radical transformation of society.
An accompanying White House statement accused the museum of veering toward extreme political activism, rooted in Marxism, to divide, dispirit, and discourage Americans. A recent report prepared by the White House Domestic Policy Council, called Saving America’s Story, accused the museum’s leadership of ideological capture, saying the Smithsonian had explicitly adopted a 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 citizens. The report, released earlier this month, claimed the museum erases America’s heritage.
The order does not indicate what sources the White House believes would be better qualified to tell America’s history, and the White House did not immediately respond to a request for more details about what the signs would say.
Trump and his allies accuse the Smithsonian of politicizing the institution by focusing too much on injustices in American history rather than more triumphant moments such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The same group tasked with producing the accuracy warnings will also have to produce signs criticizing the Smithsonian for not commemorating sufficiently the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary of its adoption.
Pushback from Democrats and historians
Democrats who oversee the Smithsonian quickly condemned the order. Congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, ranking member of the House Administration Committee, wrote on X that the executive order is a clear political overreach driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history. She said the Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the president, but to the American people, and so does the nation’s history.
The American Historical Association, a group composed of professional historians, praised the Smithsonian Institution’s commitment to scholarship and accuracy in a statement earlier this month. The group said historians practice their craft with scholarly integrity according to established standards of evidence, historical inquiry, and professional practice, and that political interference in professional museum work threatens the accuracy of historical interpretation and erodes public trust in one of the nation’s most important institutions.
The order comes just days after Smithsonian director Anthea Hartig was grilled by Republican lawmakers in two congressional hearings, where the museum was accused of being infected by a woke ideology that seeped into public displays, educational materials, and planning documents. Republican representatives fumed about what they described as overtly sexual things on display and accused Hartig of encouraging self-loathing.
Hartig defended the institution’s interpretations. According to the New York Times, she said the museum honors the declaration, the revolution, the constitution, and national symbols, and tells the truth about the times the country fell short of its own founding ideals. She called telling the story fully a form of respect for the American people and a commitment to constantly being in pursuit of a more perfect union.
The National Museum of American History declined to comment. The Smithsonian Institution did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the BBC. Friday’s order follows a separate directive Trump issued in March against the Smithsonian, directing it to eliminate improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology.