Visitors to the Smithsonian Institution will be warned that a slanted version of America’s story awaits within.
On Friday, President Donald Trump issued an Executive Order dubbed “Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution.”
The order noted that a new report from the Domestic Policy Council demonstrated that “the Smithsonian leadership does not present American history as a shared national inheritance to be taught and celebrated, but instead views American history as a ‘prime tool’ to advance ideas of social justice and the radical transformation of our society.”
“The Report also overwhelmingly demonstrates that current leadership of both the Smithsonian Institution and the Museum cannot be trusted to tell America’s story with honesty and gratitude,” Trump wrote.
@realDonaldTrump @POTUS
Withdraw all federal funding for @smithsonian NOW
Let them secure their own funding & sink or swim like liberal PBS https://t.co/hwYuHF6gGb— GigiRNC (@GigiRNC) July 23, 2026
The order commanded the Secretary of the Interior to “install temporary signage along the NPS-maintained sidewalks and walkways used by the public to access the Museum, informing visitors of the findings of the Report.”
“Such signage shall notify visitors that the Museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the Report and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history,” the order said.
“Because the Museum has failed to appropriately honor the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence during this 250th anniversary year of the founding of our country,” the order said, officials shall install “temporary exhibits or signage on NPS-maintained sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public that corrects inaccurate information presented in the Museum.”
https://t.co/QoysKMfYza
President Trump issued an executive order restoring trust in the Smithsonian Institution by implementing governance and transparency reforms to strengthen accountability and fiduciary oversight. https://t.co/QoysKMfYza— POTUS 47 Actions/Executive Orders (@47_Actions) July 24, 2026
The report, “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage” found that the “Smithsonian and Museum leadership have directed the Museum’s mission away from historical education and scholarship of a shared national inheritance to be celebrated, and toward extreme political activism, rooted in Marxism, to divide, dispirit, and discourage Americans,” according to a fact sheet issued in conjunction with the order.
“President Trump is fighting back to restore one of the Nation’s greatest civic treasures to its founding mission and purpose and reestablish truth in the Nation’s historical narrative,” the fact sheet said.
The report said that the Smithsonian “purposely presents America as a problematic country irredeemably conceived, founded by deeply flawed men, and still operating today as an instrument of systemic racism and oppression.”
“In the Museum’s current telling, the country is, above all, defined by white supremacy, slavery, conquest, exclusion, hierarchy, racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and systemic injustice,” the report said.
Now you know why Trump went after the Smithsonian! They’re installing woke ideology into the history of our great country! https://t.co/XM3EcPb5PD
— Kenny🇺🇸 (@KeNnEtHCIbeliev) July 23, 2026
The report said that at the museum, “the Founders are minimized, if not entirely excluded; traditional patriotic narratives are treated with suspicion, if not outright contempt; and the basic symbols and stories that once helped unify Americans are presented not as reasons for gratitude and inspiration, but as objects to be inherently questioned, dismantled, ‘problematized,’ and reinterpreted to achieve ideological ends.”
“To the extent that there is a story told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, it is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country, but one of regret, tragedy and shame,” the report said.
The report noted that the museum “is a clear and institutionalized example of intersectional critical theory — an intellectual framework rooted in Marxism that seeks to radically transform society by revealing and challenging alleged ‘overlapping systems of oppression’ — applied to American history.”
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