Trump asks Smithsonian for 30-foot Washington statue, exhibit
Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian’s secretary, told the Washington Post he would continue to defend the institution’s independence. “We’re at a time when people are challenging that independence,” Bunch said. “but I feel very strongly that it is as independent as we were before, and that I will continue to fight – for as long as I’m in this chair – for the independence of the Smithsonian.”
The remarks followed a series of administration requests directed at the Smithsonian. On Friday, while flying to his golf course in Ireland, Trump posted on Truth Social asking the Smithsonian Institution to install a 30-foot “Colossus statue” of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History, alongside a special exhibit honoring the nation’s first president. Trump wrote that the exhibit should run through February 2032, the 300th anniversary of Washington’s birth.
“He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist,” Trump wrote.
In the same post, Trump complained that the Smithsonian does not mention Washington’s crossing of the Delaware River during the Revolutionary War – “one of the greatest moments and turning points of the Revolution,” he called it – nor Washington’s victory at Trenton. “Stories of the Americans who fought and died for our Independence, deserve far more attention,” he wrote.
Trump proposed replacing the museum’s recently ended Center for Restorative History – an initiative that had spotlighted stories excluded from the traditional national narrative – with a “Center for American Heroes.” The new statue, if installed, would replace the museum’s 1967 Infinity sculpture by New York artist José de Rivera, which was commissioned by the federal government.
It is not clear that Trump has the authority to compel such a change. The Smithsonian operates outside the executive branch; its leadership is overseen by a board of regents that includes Vice President JD Vance, Chief Justice John Roberts, a bipartisan group of lawmakers and a group of citizens.
The Friday request is the latest in a months-long administration effort to reshape the Smithsonian’s presentation of American history. In March 2025, the White House issued a 162-page report accusing the National Museum of American History of focusing too heavily on oppression, social justice and division rather than shared national achievements. In July, Trump ordered the Interior Department to display signs outside the museum notifying visitors that exhibits should be renovated “consistent with the findings in the report.” Those signs have not yet appeared.
For Constitution Day on September 17, Trump has separately asked the Smithsonian to install an 11-foot statue of Washington – recently featured at the Freedom 250 IndyCar race – in the museum’s Flag Hall. He has already installed a Washington statue in the recently remodeled Rose Garden patio.
Other federal cultural institutions have also drawn administration attention. The board of the Kennedy Center, comprised largely of Trump appointees, recently removed Blue, a sculpture by the late New York artist Joel Shapiro that had stood on the center’s grounds since 2019. The Guardian reported there was no public announcement or consultation ahead of the removal.
The State Department said last month it is contemplating selling a painting by Kehinde Wiley that it removed from the U.S. embassy in the Dominican Republic. The canvas, titled Young Artists after Siamesas 1960, was commissioned from Wiley in 2013, before he went on to paint Barack Obama’s official presidential portrait. It features two young Dominican women standing, flanked by two seated male counterparts. Erin Scavino, the director of Art in Embassies, called the painting “very woke,” adding that “it was by the gentleman who did Obama’s portrait, and it was aesthetically terrifying.”
Trump’s longer-running monument plans include a proposed “Garden of Heroes” along the Potomac River that would display statues of 250 prominent Americans.