White House report demands Smithsonian records, threatens budget cuts

Smithsonian defends nonpartisan scholarship as White House threatens cuts

The White House on July 6 released a report accusing the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History of “extreme political activism,” as part of its ongoing review of the Smithsonian that began with President Donald Trump’s March 2025 executive order.

The report, titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” was issued by the Domestic Policy Council, the White House unit responsible for the president’s domestic agenda. Vince Haley, the council’s director, also led the administration’s celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.

The report alleges that the museum “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 our citizens.” It claims the museum refuses to “affirm the exceptional courage of the American people” and takes issue with displays that connect the Founding Fathers to slavery.

The report also says the museum endorses illegal immigration, advocates transgender issues and focuses on Christianity as “an instrument of conquest, exclusion or cultural erasure.”

The White House specifically criticized Anthea Hartig, the Smithsonian’s director, saying she has “advanced an ideological agenda contradictory to the museum’s founding purpose of fostering patriotism.”

The Smithsonian, founded in 1846 to be “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge,” oversees 21 museums and the National Zoo. Smithsonian spokeswoman Julissa Marenco said 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.”

The report follows Trump’s March 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which tasked Vice President JD Vance with overhauling the Smithsonian in coordination with Congress. The order directed Vance to “prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy.”

Since the executive order, the White House has ordered the Smithsonian to turn over thousands of pages of documents and threatened the institution with budget cuts. The Smithsonian, while independent of the president and executive branch, derives more than half of its operating budget from federal sources.