The White House Domestic Policy Council released a pointed report charging the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History with ideological capture and political activism, arguing a taxpayer-funded institution should present a unifying, patriotic narrative. The document, issued on July 4 after an executive order from President Donald Trump, lays out specific findings about exhibits, leadership statements, and a shift from scholarship to advocacy.
The report pulls no punches about its central claim. “The report concludes that the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, under its current leadership and current interpretive ideology, cannot be trusted to tell America’s story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic,” the White House Domestic Policy Council wrote in its July 4 report following up on President Donald Trump’s March 27 executive order. “By the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, NMAH has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”
At the heart of the complaint is how the museum presents history to visitors of all ages. “At the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, visitors young and old should encounter the story of the United States told with honesty, seriousness, and pride,” the report’s executive summary began. “In particular, it should help the American people understand where America came from, what makes it distinctive, and why it is worth preserving.”
The report zeroes in on leadership rhetoric as evidence of the turning point away from traditional curation. “Anthea Hartig, NMAH’s director since 2019, has explicitly stated that she sees history as a ‘prime tool of social justice’ and one of her roles as connecting ‘research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,'” the summary noted. That framing, the report argues, transforms a public museum into a political instrument.
Critics point to additional statements that suggest an activist agenda rather than neutral scholarship. “Hartig has also stated that ‘we work to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors.’ She claims to have had a personal head start ‘propped up as I was and I am by the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie,'” the report said. “These are not the words of an objective historian, but rather those of an activist advancing an ideological agenda contradictory to the Museum’s founding purpose of fostering patriotism.”
The report also catalogues what it says is a startling absence of traditional founding-era coverage inside the museum. “One of the most significant findings in this report concerns what is missing,” the report stated. “A visitor to the Museum today will find no major exhibit dedicated to America’s Founding era, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, other Founding Fathers, the Continental Congress, the Pilgrims, the Puritans, or major moments of the American Revolution, such as Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.
“Instead, visitors will find Founders, such as Benjamin Franklin, introduced chiefly through their connection to slavery while their decisive roles in building the Republic and their anti-slavery efforts are minimized or ignored.”
The report accuses the museum of intentionally sidelining core national stories while elevating present-day terms and causes. “The Museum is not merely neglecting America’s central story,” it stated. “It is intentionally withholding and subverting it.” It documents a revised mission that swaps language about “infinite richness” and “American history” for phrases about empowering people to create “a more just and compassionate future” by exploring “the complexity of our past,” and it highlights leadership rhetoric tying work to “research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,” and to phrases like ‘reparations,’ ‘restorative history,’ ‘systemic intervention, ‘decolonization, ‘social justice.'”
Federal funding complicates the issue because the Smithsonian receives substantial taxpayer support. The report emphasizes that this ideological shift does not line up with the goals of the executive order and argues for a return to institutions that educate rather than agitate. “As this report shows, confirmed in the words of Museum leadership, this ideological capture has moved the Museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country,” it wrote.
