President Donald Trump has taken several actions targeting the Smithsonian Institution, primarily through an executive order and a subsequent review process, as outlined in recent reports. In March 2025, Trump issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” accusing the Smithsonian of promoting a “divisive, race-centered ideology” that portrays American values as “inherently harmful and oppressive.”

The order aims to purge “improper, divisive, or anti-American ideology” from the institution’s museums and restore them as symbols of “American greatness.” It specifically criticized exhibits such as one at the National Museum of African American History and Culture that described “hard work,” “individualism,” and “the nuclear family” as aspects of “White culture,” and another at the forthcoming Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum for allegedly planning to celebrate male athletes in women’s sports.

On August 12, 2025, the White House announced a comprehensive review of Smithsonian exhibitions, materials, and operations to ensure alignment with a more truthful and less hateful American history, particularly ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary in 2026. The administration requires these museums to submit exhibition catalogs, placards, and plans within 30 days, with “content corrections” to replace “divisive or ideologically driven language” with “unifying, historically accurate, and constructive descriptions” within 120 days. The review also scrutinizes curatorial processes, collections, and visitor surveys.

Trump has publicly criticized the Smithsonian for focusing too much on negative aspects of American history, particularly slavery, stating on Truth Social on August 19, 2025, that the institution is “OUT OF CONTROL” for emphasizing “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been,” while neglecting “Success,” and the notable fact that the United States ended slavery after it was accepted worldwide for thousands of years, in fact, slavery was abolished here in the USA / Colonies before anywhere else in the world!

See also: USA’s Revolutionary Idea: Declaring Equality in a World that Embraced Slavery
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