What Happened
On July 4, 2026, the White House Domestic Policy Council published a 162-page report titled “Saving America’s Story,” accusing the Smithsonian Institution, and particularly its National Museum of American History (NMAH), of “extreme political activism” and presenting what the report calls “a radical view of American history.” The report also criticizes exhibits at the National Museum of the American Indian.
The report argues that NMAH understates the role of the Founding Fathers and the American Revolution while emphasizing slavery, colonialism, and systemic discrimination. It points to specific exhibits, including “Many Voices, One Nation,” which frames national history substantially through immigration and migration, and materials on Benjamin Franklin that the report says focus too heavily on his history as a slaveholder relative to his broader contributions. It also objects to items described as “undocumented organizing” material, including a monarch butterfly display labeled “DACA wings” alongside phrases like “Undocumented & UNAFRAID.”
At the National Museum of the American Indian, the report singles out the “Nation to Nation” exhibit on treaty history, objecting in particular to an introductory video line describing “the rise of a new great nation at the sacrifice of hundreds of others,” which the report characterizes as framing the American founding as “a fundamentally oppressive and genocidal effort.”
The report was published as part of the administration’s ongoing effort to reshape how history is presented at federally supported cultural institutions ahead of the 250th anniversary of American independence.
Background
The review behind this report traces back to Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which President Trump signed on March 27, 2025. That order directed Vice President J.D. Vance, in consultation with the president’s domestic policy advisers, to work to “remove improper ideology” from Smithsonian institutions, arguing that content casting America in a “negative light” has no place in federally supported cultural institutions. A follow-up White House letter in August 2025 formally requested an internal review of Smithsonian exhibitions and materials.
The Smithsonian is not a standard executive branch agency. It was established by an act of Congress in 1846 as an independent federal trust instrumentality, and it is governed by a Board of Regents that includes the Chief Justice of the United States, the Vice President, members of the Senate and House, and citizen regents, rather than by a single executive department. Roughly half of its funding (about 53 percent as of its 2023 annual report) comes from federal appropriations, with the rest from private gifts, revenue, and endowments. This structure is part of why the current dispute involves questions about how much direct authority the executive branch has over its curatorial content.
Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch met with President Trump at the White House on August 28, 2025, and affirmed the institution’s independence from political direction, saying that independence was “paramount” while stating the Smithsonian remains committed to telling the “American story” for all Americans.
What Different Sides Are Saying
The White House argues that the Smithsonian’s flagship history museum has adopted a one-sided, ideologically driven framework that shortchanges the nation’s founding and traditional national narrative.
Claim: A visitor to NMAH today will find no major exhibit dedicated to the Founding era, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Continental Congress, or events like Washington’s crossing of the Delaware. Fact check: This is disputed. American Historical Association executive director Sarah Weicksel specifically pushed back on this claim, noting the museum has “extraordinary objects that tell the history of the Revolution, including the newly restored Gunboat Philadelphia,” and that visitors encounter George Washington and the Revolution in the museum’s “The Price of Freedom” exhibit. This is a direct factual disagreement between the report and museum-affiliated historians over what currently exists on the museum floor, which we could not independently resolve without a firsthand exhibit inventory.
Claim: The museum’s Interpretive Plan directs staff to tie every exhibit to seven “core issues of our time,” including race, identity, gender, sexuality, and immigration. Fact check: This describes an internal planning document whose existence we could not independently verify from public reporting beyond the report’s own characterization. If accurate, this would be a factual claim about internal museum policy rather than opinion; if the framing of what counts as a “core issue” is the report’s own interpretation, that framing itself is opinion, not a fact to be checked.
Claim: The Nation to Nation exhibit’s introductory video frames the American founding as “a fundamentally oppressive and genocidal effort to take Native Americans’ land and oppress their culture and peoples.” Fact check: The quoted video line itself, “the rise of a new great nation at the sacrifice of hundreds of others,” appears to be accurately quoted based on available reporting. Whether that line amounts to a “genocidal” framing, however, is the report’s interpretation and characterization rather than a verifiable fact. This is opinion/framing, not a separately checkable claim, though the underlying historical point that Native nations lost land and sovereignty through conquest and broken treaties during westward expansion is well documented by mainstream historians.
Historians and Smithsonian leadership argue that the report represents political interference in curatorial decisions that should be made according to professional historical standards, not White House preference.
Claim: The White House is seeking to impose “a narrowly sanitized version of the American past” on federal cultural institutions. Fact check: This is the AHA’s characterization and opinion about the report’s intent, not an independently checkable factual claim. It is a reasonable interpretive reading of the report’s stated goals, but readers should treat it as the AHA’s framing rather than a settled fact.
Claim: The Smithsonian operates independently and its curatorial choices follow “the professional standards of our discipline.” Fact check: This is a mix of fact and self-characterization. It is factually accurate that the Smithsonian is legally structured as an independent trust instrumentality rather than a standard executive agency, which supports the independence claim on paper. Whether its actual curatorial choices in practice meet professional historical consensus, versus reflect a particular ideological lean as the White House alleges, is a matter of ongoing dispute that we cannot resolve as a simple fact.
Related Links
- In scathing report, White House accuses Smithsonian of presenting ‘a radical view of American history,’ ABC News
- White House report accuses Smithsonian museum of ‘extreme political activism,’ The Washington Post
- White House slams Smithsonian leadership for radical ideology in July Fourth report, CNN
- Our Biggest Takeaways from the White House Report Targeting Smithsonian Native American Exhibits, Native News Online
- Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History, The White House
- Trump executive order aims to remove DEI initiatives from Smithsonian and other cultural bodies, NPR
- Smithsonian Institution: Background, Entities, and Leadership, Congressional Research Service
Discussion Questions
- Have you visited the Smithsonian or a similar national history museum? What stood out to you?
- Do you think the federal government should have a say in how history museums it funds present content?
- Which claim in the report do you find most convincing, and why?
- Do you find the White House’s description of the exhibits or the AHA’s rebuttal more persuasive?
- Why do disagreements over how to present the Founding era keep recurring in American public life?
- Should museum curators or elected officials have final say over how history is presented?
- How might a museum fairly present both the achievements and the injustices of the Founding era?
- What responsibility do you think a national museum has toward groups whose history includes conquest or exclusion?
- How should the public respond when a factual claim about a museum’s own exhibits is directly disputed by different sources?
- Imagine you are curating a new exhibit on America’s Founding era. What would you choose to include, and what would you leave out?
