People walk by a statue of George Washington by Horatio Greenough while visiting the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in 2025. The White House has released a report criticizing the museum for “extreme political activism.” File Photo by Bonnie Cash/UPI | License Photo
The White House marked Independence Day by releasing a scathing report on the Smithsonian Institution, particularly the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, for what it called “extreme political activism.”
The report, “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” accuses the museum of anti-white bias and claims it “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.”
The report takes exception to display language that “refuses to affirm the exceptional courage of the American people” and displays that connect the Founding Fathers with slavery, along with many other complaints.
It also says the museum endorses illegal immigration, advocates transgender issues and focuses on Christianity as “an instrument of conquest, exclusion or cultural erasure.”
Julissa Marenco, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, 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 todoing so,” The New York Times reported.
The report was written by the Domestic Policy Council, a White House organization tasked with the president’s domestic agenda. Vince Haley, its leader, was in charge of the administration’s celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
The report particularly criticizes Anthea Hartig, the Smithsonian’s director, saying she has “advanced an ideological agenda contradictory to museum’s founding purpose of fostering patriotism.”
According to the Smithsonian’s website, the institution was founded in 1846 to be “an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.” It oversees 21 museums and The National Zoo.
This new report is a follow-up to President Donald Trump’s executive order in March 2025. In that order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Trump tasked Vice President JD Vance with overhauling the Smithsonian with Congress.
The White House also ordered the institution to turn over thousands of pages of documents, threatening it with budget cuts. The Smithsonian has been independent of the president and executive branch but derives more than half of its budget from federal sources.
Trump’s executive order in 2025 ordered 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.”
