Image
Image Credit
Kevin Carter/Contributor via Getty Images
Image Alt
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is seen from the Washington Monument on May 29, 2026 in Washington, DC.
Image Size
landscape-medium
Image Position
center
- The White House released a 162-page report accusing the National Museum of American History of promoting “extreme political activism.”
- The report follows a 2025 executive order directing a federal review of Smithsonian museums and their historical framing.
- Smithsonian leadership responded with a statement defending its scholarship and mission as nonpartisan and publicly accountable.
The White House is escalating its battle with the Smithsonian Institution through a scathing 162-page report that accuses the National Museum of American History (NMAH) of promoting “extreme political activism” instead of telling a patriotic version of the country’s story
The report, titled “Saving America’s Story,” was released by the White House Domestic Policy Council over the weekend as part of an ongoing review launched after President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” That order directed Vice President JD Vance, in his role on the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work with Trump advisers to remove what the administration called “improper ideology” from Smithsonian museums and related properties.
At the center of the report is the NMAH, which the White House claims moved away from “straightforward historical education and scholarship” and toward activism. In one of its sharpest lines, the report says the Smithsonian and the museum’s current leadership “cannot be trusted” to tell America’s story in a way the administration considers honest, inspiring, and unifying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y21–L-Q8mA
The report criticizes museum leadership for emphasizing race, identity, gender, sexuality, immigration, economic inequality, climate change, nationalism, and other subjects across exhibits. It also objects to how the museum presents slavery, systemic racism, conquest, exclusion, and the nation’s founding. In one section, the report argues that America is being presented as a country defined by white supremacy, slavery, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and systemic injustice. While the new report focuses on the NMAH, Trump’s March 2025 executive order also singled out the National Museum of African American History and Culture while criticizing what it described as “divisive” museum narratives.
The Smithsonian pushed back in a statement “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 spokesperson said. The NMAH’s own mission statement says the museum seeks to “empower people to create a just and compassionate future by exploring, preserving, and sharing the complexity of our past.”
Smithsonian report lands on America’s 250th anniversary
The NMAH is currently leading Smithsonian programming for the nation’s 250th anniversary through In Pursuit of Life, Liberty & Happiness, a museum-wide exhibition featuring 250 objects connected to the ideals of the Declaration of Independence
The White House report does not lay out a detailed list of immediate corrective actions, but it repeatedly points to the Smithsonian’s public funding and argues that taxpayers should expect the institution to serve as a steward of national heritage rather than what the administration calls a vehicle for ideological campaigns. According to the Smithsonian’s own fact sheet, the institution’s current federal appropriation is more than $1 billion, and it is about 62 percent federally funded through congressional appropriations, federal grants, and government contracts.
