President Donald J. Trump looks on as Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution Lonnie Bunch delivers remarks in the East Room of the White House Thursday, July 18, 2019, during a presentation of a World War II flag flown aboard a United States vessel during the D-Day invasion. (Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks) 
Exterior of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, July 20, 2016, photo Fuzheado, CCA-SA 4.0 International license.
President Trump’s relationship with the Smithsonian has shifted from ceremonial partnership in his first term to an escalating second-term campaign to police “Americanism,” using executive orders, public firings, paperwork demands, and funding threats to force ideological compliance. How has the White House leveraged the Smithsonian’s hybrid public status and federal dependence to turn America’s flagship museum system into a battleground over who gets to define national history?
From grounding to upheaval
In February 2017, Donald Trump walked through the four-month-old National Museum of African American History and Culture with Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III. During that visit, the President sounded like a conventional head of state confronted by the moral weight of a national institution. The museum, he said, was a “meaningful reminder” of why the country must fight “bigotry, intolerance, and hatred.” He praised the museum’s tribute to Black American history and framed it as a national unifier – and then used the setting for a denunciation of a wave of anti-Semitic threats then taking place in Washington, DC.
Bunch, who oversees the Smithsonian’s 21 museums, research centers and libraries, has described how during that visit, when Trump paused to read a label about Dutch involvement in the slave trade, he pivoted to comment that, “they love me in the Netherlands.” That moment captures the first era of Trump’s relationship with the Smithsonian Institution: ceremonial proximity, photo-ops as governance, and a familiar Washington assumption that cultural institutions can be embraced without being subordinated.
In 2019 and 2020, the relationship was civil and mutually supportive. In July 2019, President Trump hosted a ceremony at the White House marking the return of a historic World War II flag from the Netherlands, an event tied to the Smithsonian’s custodianship of national memory. Official coverage and broadcast footage show the rituals of legitimacy: the President honoring an artifact; Smithsonian leadership physically present; the handshake between executive power and curatorial authority.
National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. Architect: Gyo Obata, 16 May 2005, photo David Bjorgen, CC-BY-SA 2.5 license.
At the very end of his first term, in December 27, 2020, Congress enacted a major appropriations bill, the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which, among other provisions, created two new Smithsonian museums: the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum and the National Museum of the American Latino, which President Trump signed into law. This is the irony that will later trigger conflict: in Trump’s first term, the Smithsonian expanded, by law, its pluralistic national project; in his second term, the Smithsonian would become a stage on which pluralism is treated as a disease.
What has followed, especially after Trump’s return to office in January 2025, has uprooted any assumption of goodwill – or even tolerance of the museums’ basic function to present America’s history to the public. President Trump has issued executive orders drafted like aesthetic manifestos; the administration has significantly reduced the Smithsonian’s budget and threatened to defund it. The President has used social media to fire one Smithsonian museum director without congressional authority, and his top advisers have made numerous offensive and insulting public statements against museum personnel. U.S. museums, including the Smithsonian Institution, appear hard-pressed to account for the hostility from the White House – museums are more often criticized for being stodgy and old fashioned than for being too ‘woke’!
In a December 2025 letter accusing the Smithsonian of willful noncompliance with the administration’s August demand for proof of its compliance with Trump’s expressed cultural policies, the White House repeated an impossible to meet deadline: to submit millions of records, inventories, proposals, exhibition texts and future plans for review by January 13, 2026 – primarily in digital form (the better to scan its content with AI). In sum, President Trump has demanded the right to decide not merely what the Smithsonian museums display, but to control its entire public message.
View of the sculpture garden at the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., August 2007, photo Gryffindor, public domain.
The Smithsonian’s vulnerability is structural. It is neither a normal federal agency nor a private museum: it is a “trust instrumentality” created by Congress in 1846, governed by a 17-member Board of Regents that includes the Vice President and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, plus members of Congress and nine citizen regents. It is also, by the Smithsonian’s own accounting, about 62% federally funded, with the remainder coming from trust funds, gifts, and earned revenue.
For the Trump administration, the Smithsonian, although unquestionably America’s greatest museum system, is also close enough to government to be pressured, independent enough to be worth usurping its policymaking, and so prestigious an institution that controlling its public message has symbolism across America’s cultural landscape.
Trump’s changing relationship with the Smithsonian should be considered in light of the positive optics of his first administration, his growing appetite for control over culture expressed at the very beginning of the current administration and – from late 2025 into January 2026 – how the White House moved from rhetoric to procedural attack.
National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, photo by Postdlf, 1-8-05
CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.
2025 and the second Inauguration
Just days before the President’s 2025 inauguration, Secretary Bunch set forth the Smithsonian’s nonpartisan position in an interview published in the Institution’s popular magazine, saying:
“It’s really clear that the Smithsonian, by its very nature, is always nonpartisan. It is always driven by the best scholarship. But it’s important to recognize that if you explore art, history, culture, science—by definition, you’re going to deal with controversy. By definition, you’re going to deal with multiple points of view. So to create the notion that the Smithsonian will never be involved in controversy is a wonderful dream, but it’s just a dream…”
“The goal here is never, ever to create a sense of self-censorship in the Smithsonian, but to recognize that the Smithsonian has to educate a whole lot of people, some who believe exactly in the interpretations you do, others who are diametrically opposed, and you’ve got to be able to serve both… the joy of the Smithsonian is to give the public both what it wants, but also what it needs. That means that the Smithsonian will always be walking a tightrope, but that’s OK, because our job is to educate, to challenge, to make a nation better. And that’s not easy, and we shouldn’t be doing what’s easy.”
In response, from the very start of his second administration, the President didn’t just criticize the Smithsonian, he condemned it, leaving the Smithsonian’s Secretary to fight a defensive battle to safeguard its fundamental purposes of research and education, preservation and stewardship, and to affirm the institution’s duty to pass America’s story in full to each incoming generation.
January 2025: DEI as the first domino
National Museum of the American Indian, anonymous, CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.
Trump returned to office on January 20, 2025. Within days, his administration’s posture toward “DEI” and “woke” programming became a governing theme. The Guardian later reported that Smithsonian leadership (and peer institutions in Washington) moved quickly to close or wind down diversity offices following Trump’s early executive directions on DEI, a form of anticipatory compliance that would become a recurring survival strategy. It was the first lesson internalized across the cultural sector: you may be independent, but you are not safe.
March 27, 2025: Executive Order 14253 – “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”
On March 27, 2025, Trump signed Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The order argues that public history has been “rewritten” by ideology spawned under the Obama and Biden administrations. It singles out the Smithsonian as having fallen under a “divisive” interpretive framework; it directs the Vice President – a Smithsonian regent under U.S. law – to help remove what the order calls “improper ideology” across Smithsonian properties.
“Under this historical revision, our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed. Rather than fostering unity and a deeper understanding of our shared past, the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.”
The Order continues:
“It is the policy of my Administration to restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”
Smithsonian Institution Castle Building, 21 June 2024, photo Ajay Suresh, CCA 2.0 Generic license.
The Order also framed the budget as the enforcement mechanism – that appropriations should be conditioned to ensure museum content “aligns” with the President’s directive,” or else.
Two points are worth holding in mind: First, the Smithsonian is not a federal agency. It is governed by its Regents and Secretary, not by presidential fiat. Second, the Smithsonian is heavily federally funded, which means the administration can behave as though curatorial autonomy is a negotiable luxury item, funded at Congress’s pleasure, disbursed through the executive’s machinery. The outrage here is not that politicians have opinions about museums. The outrage is the bureaucratic attempt to convert an opinion into a mandate and to label that mandate as “truth.”
Early April 2025: Bunch’s steadying language to Smithsonian staff
Within days, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III circulated a message to staff affirming the Smithsonian’s commitment to scholarship and nonpartisanship, signaling that the institution would continue its work “free of partisanship” and grounded in research even as the political climate changed. This, too, becomes a pattern: Bunch’s public posture was to maintain a calm insistence on mission, coupled with just enough procedural compliance to keep the institution functioning.
May–June 2025: Kim Sajet firing by social media post and Amy Sherald cancels exhibit
National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C., 1 September 2008, photo Bobak Ha’Eri, CC-By-SA-3.0 license.
On May 30, 2025, Trump announced on social media that he had fired Kim Sajet, who was for twelve years the director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery. However, the President does not have that authority. The Smithsonian responded with a carefully worded assertion of governance: it described itself as nonpartisan and clarified that “all personnel decisions” are made under the Secretary’s authority, overseen by the Board. But the personal dimension and human cost of the White House’s political theater form of management immediately became clear. Sajet was inundated with hostile commentary in the media, adding to the strain of being denounced by the President. Amid internal Regent’s meetings and external pressure; she ultimately resigned, describing her decision as trying to protect the institution. In September, she became the new director of the Milwaukee Art Museum.
Artist Amy Sherald’s work, Trans Forming Liberty, a painting depicting a transgender figure as the Statue of Liberty, became a test of artistic autonomy at the National Portrait Gallery. Sherald withdrew her planned National Portrait Gallery exhibition after reported internal disputes at the Smithsonian over whether the work’s presentation and contextual framing would result in a conflict with the Trump administration. Sherald treated this as censorship shaped by political fear and moved the show to the Baltimore Museum of Art.
August 12–13, 2025: Demand for “comprehensive internal review,” paperwork as punishment
Mail delivery coach, National Postal Museum, Smithsonian Institution, photo Cliff from Arlington, VA, CCA 2.0 Generic license.
On August 12, 2025, senior White House officials sent a letter initiating a “comprehensive internal review” of Smithsonian programming, initially focusing on eight museums and demanding extensive materials (from public-facing text to curatorial and planning documents), with phased deadlines and an expectation of “content corrections,” in other words, compliance with the President’s March Executive Order.
This was not merely oversight. It was a demand for control over the museum’s internal logic, its processes, standards, plans, so that political appointees can re-engineer the output. In August, Trump escalated his attacks on social media, claiming:
“The Smithsonian is OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future,” Mr. Trump said in a social media post. “This Country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE. We have the ‘HOTTEST’ Country in the World, and we want people to talk about it, including in our Museums.”
He then declared he would begin treating museums “the exact same” as universities, where he had already withheld billions in funding to force compliance with anti-DEI directives.
National Postal Museum building in Washington, D.C., February 18, 2006 , Photo Kmf164, CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.
Naturally, there has backlash from historians, museum professionals, and free speech advocates to the White House’s attempt to control policy and content at the Smithsonian. The American Alliance of Museums warned that “when any directive dictates what should or should not be displayed, it risks narrowing the public’s window into evidence, ideas and a full range of perspectives.”
The American Historical Association echoed these concerns, stating bluntly:
“Political interference into professional curatorial practices and museum and educational content places at risk the integrity and accuracy of historical interpretation and stands to erode public trust in our shared institutions.”
The Smithsonian reiterated its independence while acknowledging the logistical burden of assembling the demanded material across a museum complex of enormous scale.
Late 2025: Compliance, partial compliance, and then the funding threat as punctuation
Smithsonian Castle Aerial, Washington, D.C. The Smithsonian Institution Building, photo Carol Highsmith, public domain.
On December 18, 2025, the White House sent a sharply worded follow-up letter asserting that the Smithsonian had fallen far short of its deadlines and requests, and explicitly reminding leadership that Smithsonian funds are “only available” for uses consistent with Trump’s March Executive Order 14253 – language that reads as a threat to starve the institution into rhetorical obedience.
The demand letters from Vince Haley at the White House Domestic Policy Council and Russell Vought at the Office of Management and Budget, covered an exhaustive range of materials, including:
- Wall didactics, labels, and interpretive materials for current exhibits in the eight museums.
- Programming files for the United States’ 250th anniversary, encompassing draft concepts, proposed artwork, and event details.
- An index of traveling and upcoming exhibitions from 2026 to 2029, with proposals, timelines, and preliminary budgets.
- Inventories of permanent collections.
- Governance documents like organizational charts and documentation of exhibition approval processes.
- Grant information and visitor surveys
The December 2025 White House letter is notable for how it reframes the Smithsonian’s mission:
“We wish to be assured that none of the leadership of the Smithsonian museums is confused about the fact that the United States has been among the greatest forces for good in the history of the world.”
The White House has presented the Smithsonian with an ideological loyalty test disguised as institutional guidance.
January 2026: Deadlines, board turnover, and the long game
The National Museum of African Art, Washington, D.C., August 2007, photo Gryffindor, public domain.
As of early January 2026, the conflict is no longer episodic. It is procedural.
Multiple accounts describe a looming deadline – January 13, 2026 – for turning over remaining requested materials related to eight museums, with implications for funding and future governance.
The administration’s strategy also targets the Smithsonian’s governing structure. The Board of Regents includes the Vice President as a sitting regent, and citizen regents serve fixed terms and are appointed by joint resolution of Congress signed by the President – meaning board composition is a slow but potent political lever.
A recent article by the Guardian’s Charlotte Higgins portrays the broader dynamic. Pressure does not always arrive as an explicit order; it can arrive as a climate in which curators pre-edit language, avoid flashpoints, and learn to replace “diversity” with “variety” – not because scholarship changed, but because the risk profile did.
The Trump administration policy is not nonpartisan. It is affirmatively triumphalist. It treats any interpretive friction, over slavery, dispossession, exclusion, or gender policy, as evidence of institutional deviance rather than reflecting historical reality. A museum becomes “biased” not when it lies, but when it refuses to flatter.
The Smithsonian, for its part, has responded with the language of institutional survival: emphasizing its scholarship, professionalism, governance procedures, and independence. But survival language has a cost: it is allergic to confrontation. And it risks becoming the rhetorical equivalent of sandbags against a flood: useful, necessary, and silently conceding that the waters are, indeed, rising.
Smithsonian Zoo front entrance, 20 June 2005, photo Quadell, CCA-SA 3.0 Unported license.
NOTE: The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its shops and its magazine. Most of its facilities are located in Washington, D.C., but its 21 museums, zoo, and eight research centers include sites in New York City, Virginia, Panama, and elsewhere. It has over 142 million items in its collections.
