Le président américain Donald Trump ordered on Friday the installation of signs in front of the National Museum of American History in Washington, to warn visitors that its exhibits must, in his view, be corrected to present accurate information about the country's history.
A decree that is based on a disputed report
This decree is based on a report published in early July by the White House domestic policy council, which describes the leaders of the Smithsonian Institution, which manages the museum, as radical activists who cannot be trusted to tell American history in an honest and unifying way. The document criticizes the institution, in particular, for not sufficiently emphasizing the central role of the Christian faith in the nation's history.
The museum's director, historian Anthea Hartig, the first woman to hold the position, responded that the report neither fairly nor accurately characterized the entirety of the work carried out by the institution.
A campaign launched in March against several federal museums
This latest development is part of a broader campaign launched in March with an initial executive order entitled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which accused the Smithsonian Institution of having succumbed to a divisive, race-based ideology. Donald Trump had already dismissed the director of the National Portrait Gallery, another museum within the same institution, in May 2025 for the same reasons.
The review initiated by the White House targets a total of eight Smithsonian Institution museums, including the National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American Art, amid growing tensions over the official narrative of U.S. history as the 250th anniversary of independence approaches.
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