A new White House report brands the leadership of the Smithsonian Institution, especially at the National Museum of American History, as radical activists who cannot be trusted, indicating that President Trump may be preparing to install his own team. The report was released late on Independence Day by the White House Domestic Policy Council, the AP reports. Trump has been waging an aggressive campaign to overhaul some of Washington's most sacred cultural and historic institutions. In March, he revealed his intention to force changes at the Smithsonian with an executive order that targeted funding for programs that advanced what he called "divisive narratives" and "improper ideology."
"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," says the report by the council, which is led by a former Trump speechwriter. The authors added: "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." The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to requests for comment Sunday.
Historian Lonnie Bunch, the Smithsonian's secretary, is the first African American to lead the institution. In an unrelated interview that aired Sunday on NBC's Meet the Press, Bunch said "the notion of being a more perfect union, not the perfect union, is really what motivates me," adding that the nation's greatest strength is "not running away from its history" but "understanding how that history shaped us and continues to shape us." Historian Anthea M. Hartig is the first woman to serve as director of the National Museum of American History. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania accused Trump and his allies on Sunday of trying to rewrite history. "There's not one individual narrative that a president gets about our history," he said on CNN's State of the Union.
"And any president should want to make sure that that full history is shared, that the American people are able to draw their own conclusions." Shapiro added, "If we understand where we came from, we're going to have a better path forward." Trump's council has another view. The history museum "confronts visitors with materials intended to undermine faith in American institutions and the longstanding shared ideals of the American people," its report says, per the AP. It accuses the current leaders of having a "radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love."
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