Smithsonian's National Museum of American History promotes 'extreme political activism,' WH report alleges
A sweeping new White House report concluded that the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH) has become a taxpayer-backed institution of "ideological capture" and "extreme political activism."
"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."
According to the 162-page "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" report, delivered on America's 250th birthday, NMAH treats the American story as a political tool rather than a shared national inheritance.
"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."
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Instead, the museum has moved "away from straightforward historical education and scholarship" and toward activism, the report found.
"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.
"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."
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The report made five key conclusions about 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."
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The NMAH presented revisionist history, using terms that exist now but not then, including "a popular term-of-art to 'Critical Social Justice,'" the report found.
"The Museum is not merely neglecting America’s central story," it stated. "It is intentionally withholding and subverting it."
Noted was the political revision of "its mission statement under current leadership, which replaced the phrases 'infinite richness' and 'American history' with language about empowering people to create 'a more just and compassionate future' by exploring 'the complexity of our past.'"
"The Museum has shifted from scholarship to activism," the report read, "pointing to Museum leadership's own public statements tying 'research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,' dismantling inherited narratives, using history as a 'prime tool of social justice,' calling for American history to be 'reframed,' and describing museum work in terms of 'reparations,' 'restorative history,' 'systemic intervention, 'decolonization, 'social justice.'"
The report also criticizes the museum’s approach to race, immigration, gender and sexuality, alleging that exhibits and programming have been shaped by modern activist priorities rather than neutral historical scholarship.
The Smithsonian Institution receives more than $1 billion annually in taxpayer support and its ideology does not comport with Trump's executive order and initiatives to remove political influence in government entities, according to the Domestic Policy Council.
"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.