Category: News

The Trump administration escalated pressure on the Smithsonian last week, threatening to withhold federal funds if it does not submit extensive documentation for a sweeping content review. President Donald Trump earlier this year set out to purge what he called “improper ideology” from the nation’s most prestigious museum system, efforts that are expected to intensify as his administration tries to shape the country’s 250th anniversary celebrations next year.

In a staff email obtained by the Washington Post, sent Friday evening after the funding threat, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III said the Smithsonian had sent information to the White House in September and intended to submit more that day. He asserted that “all content, programming, and curatorial decisions are made by the Smithsonian.”

The previous day, Domestic Policy Council director Vince Haley and White House budget director Russell Vought wrote to Bunch that the Smithsonian’s initial submissions “fell far short of what was requested.” Among the solicited documents are current exhibition descriptions, comprehensive America 250 programming files, draft plans for upcoming shows, and internal guidelines used in exhibition development. The White House gave the Smithsonian until Jan. 13 to meet the request.

“Funds apportioned for the Smithsonian Institution are only available for use in a manner consistent with Executive Order 14253 ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ and the fulfillment of the requests set forth in our Aug. 12, 2025 letter,” Haley and Vought wrote. The letter specifically referenced the Museum of American History, the Museum of Natural History, the Air and Space Museum, the Museum of African American History and Culture, the Museum of the American Indian, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Museum of African Art, and the National Portrait Gallery.

It was not immediately clear how much money the White House might try to withhold, from which parts of the Smithsonian, or on what authority. The institution is about 62% federally funded by a combination of congressional appropriation, federal grants, and contracts.

An earlier letter, in August, called for an aggressive review of eight museums to ensure they align with the president’s directive to “celebrate American exceptionalism” and asked the Smithsonian to submit all requested materials within 75 days and “begin implementing content corrections” within 120.

Amid scrutiny from Trump, the institution had already planned its own content review, with the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents instructing Bunch in June “to ensure unbiased content” across the institution and report back on “any needed personnel changes.”

The Smithsonian declined to comment on the latest development. In Friday’s email, Bunch told staff that the institution had provided the White House with information in September about their public exhibitions and displays, policies, and procedures, and had planned to send more documents related to their mission, organization, and public exhibitions and displays.

But, Bunch added, “some aspects of the White House request are not readily available and will require a significant amount of time, labor, and coordination from various departments across the Smithsonian” and as they collect documents, they would “continue to evaluate the scope of our response.”

He stressed that the Smithsonian is “committed to transparency” and has for nearly 180 years “served our country as an independent and nonpartisan institution.”

In September, Bunch wrote in a letter to staff that the institution had assembled a small, internal team to advise on what it can provide to the White House and said it was undergoing “our own review of content to ensure our programming is factual and nonpartisan.”

The heightened demands arrive at the end of a tumultuous year for the Smithsonian — the self-described “world’s largest museum, education, and research complex” — which normally operates independently. Historians have broadly criticized Trump for attempting to sanitize the country’s past by demanding that cultural institutions espouse “American exceptionalism” and focus less on slavery, among other historical sins.

In June, the director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, resigned after Trump attempted to fire her, and months later, artist Amy Sherald pulled her solo show from the same museum, after a disagreement with the institution over how a portrait of a transgender woman as the Statue of Liberty would be displayed.

The Trump administration amplified its rhetoric over the summer, with the president posting on social media that the nation’s museums are “essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE’” and that the Smithsonian is too focused on “how bad Slavery was.” The White House later released a list of exhibits and materials at the Smithsonian of which it disapproves, specifically targeting works and content mentioning race, slavery, transgender identity, and immigration.

A unique public-private partnership that is a “trust instrumentality” created by Congress, the Smithsonian puts its public funds toward conserving national collections, basic research, public education, and administrative and support services to maintain large museum and research complexes. Its private funds are used to endow positions, build new facilities, and open new exhibitions, among other uses, according to the Smithsonian website.

“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” leading up to the nation’s 250th anniversary, Haley and Vought wrote in Thursday’s letter. “The American people will have no patience” for any museum that is “uncomfortable conveying a positive view of American history.”

The Organization of American Historians wrote in an August statement that Trump’s content review “will undoubtedly be in service of authoritarian control over the national narrative, collective memory, and national collections.”

James Millward, a history professor at Georgetown who studies Chinese history and is one of the founders and leaders of Citizen Historians for the Smithsonian — a volunteer effort to document everything on display at the institution — said that he suspects the request for digital files means “they’re looking for trigger words.” The Post reported in February that National Science Foundation staff members were combing through research projects looking for words such as “diversity” and “gender.”

“We’ve seen, of course, this across websites, across agencies, across the United States, and they want to apply that kind of sledgehammer, chauvinistic, brute force, and frankly, bigoted approach to the Smithsonian as well,” Millward told the Post.

The rhetoric from the Trump administration on how to discuss the past is “very similar to Chinese Communist Party propaganda,” he said. “Only positive stories, only positive energy, no negative energy allowed when you’re talking about history.”

Over three years, the U.S. Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee sifted through hundreds of ideas for commemorative coins to celebrate the 250th anniversary of America’s founding.

The group settled on five options, including quarters honoring abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old girl who helped integrate public schools in New Orleans; and the women’s suffrage movement.

“The question was do we focus only on what happened in 1776 and the years around that or do we also talk about everything that has happened since then,” said Lawrence Brown, a retired New York City doctor who served on the committee from 2019 to 2024.

“To me, the latter is just as important if not more important because it gives us answers to the questions of how did we maintain that Constitution? How did we maintain our independence?”

In a preview of the Trump administration’s approach to celebrating the country’s 250th birthday, Treasury Department officials announced this month that the agency would ignore the committee’s recommendation and produce quarters that are far less diverse and more traditional. Instead of addressing the country’s racial history, the five coins will feature images of former presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and Abraham Lincoln, as well as a Pilgrim couple.

The Biden administration was focused on diversity, equity and inclusion, and critical race theory, U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach told Fox News, but the “Trump administration is dedicated to fostering prosperity and patriotism.”

“The designs on these historic coins depict the story of America’s journey toward a ‘more perfect union,’ and celebrate America’s defining ideals of liberty,” Kristie McNally, acting director of the U.S. Mint, said in a statement.

The administration is also considering a commemorative dollar with President Donald Trump’s face on one side and his raised fist with the words “FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT” on the other, a reference to the widely circulated image of the president following an assassination attempt in 2024. Democratic senators have decried the idea as “un-American” and introduced legislation to prohibit “the likeness of a living or sitting president” from appearing on American currency.

The nation’s semiquincentennial offers Trump a rare, high-profile opportunity to shape how Americans understand the country’s history. In addition to the coins, the Post Office is expected to announce commemorative stamps, and the National Endowment for the Humanities is offering up to $200,000 to fund new statues of historical figures.

The new coin designs reflect the Trump Administration’s focus on exalting the country’s pre-civil rights history and depicting idealized images of American life. It is part of an effort to rewrite the past with an exclusionary view of American history, some historians said.

The White House is working with PragerU, a nonprofit that produces educational videos and is known for taking a conservative view of American history, to organize educational initiatives and “freedom trucks,” mobile museums that will be driven across the country during semiquincentennial celebrations.

In September, the administration announced the opening of the Founders Museum in Washington, which has been criticized by historians for its use of AI-generated material and its exclusion of nonwhite voices from the nation’s past. The administration is encouraging educators to re-create the exhibit at their schools with printable versions of the portraits and labels.

“The goal is to instill a sense of patriotism in young Americans,” said Allen Estrin, co-founder of PragerU. “If we don’t have an appreciation of our past, it’s going to be very difficult to imagine a bright future.”

Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College, said that it is not unusual for presidents to put their stamp on historical events and tie them to their agendas. But by working so closely with ideological groups and focusing on issues like DEI, Trump is risking infusing partisan politics into the semiquincentennial and turning off half the country, he said.

“I’d be very happy for more people to read the founding documents and seriously engage with the arguments that founders were making,” Rudalevige said. “But I think unfortunately it’s likely that the celebration is going to be pushed into the same culture wars and the same polarization that seems to affect so much of the country right now when it ought to be a time when we could rise above that.”

Dean Kotlowski, a historian who served on the Citizens Coinage Advisory Committee from 2018 to 2023, said the new coins are part of the administration’s efforts to derail a campaign to diversify the faces on America’s money. “The whole idea was to get away from this kind of presidential history but these coins are very, very traditional,” Kotlowski said.

The committee, which was established by Congress in 2003, began working on coins to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday after Trump signed the Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act during the waning days of his first term. The law called for the creation of five quarters, including at least one featuring a woman.

The 11-member committee worked with the National Archives, National Park Service, and historians to develop themes and designs for the coins. They conducted online polls and solicited public comment. The process culminated in a two-day public hearing in October 2024 before the panel submitted its final recommendations to then-Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen.

Among the designs recommended for the quarter featuring Bridge is an image immortalized in Norman Rockwell’s 1964 painting of her being escorted to school by U.S. marshals with the words “We Shall Overcome.” The committee chose a portrait of Frederick Douglass that, it said, “conveys his strength as a symbol of the abolition movement.” A third coin celebrating the women’s suffrage movement included a protester carrying a “Votes for Women” flag.

The remaining two quarters would feature images of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

“The process, as it was supposed to happen, is very well-informed, very public, and taken very seriously,” said Dennis Tucker, who took part in the deliberations during his tenure on the committee from 2016 to 2024. “It’s not clear what went into this decision.”

Trump has been on a campaign to restore what he calls “patriotic education” to the country’s national parks, monuments, and museums. Signs and exhibits related to slavery have been removed from multiple national parks with Trump arguing that they overemphasize the negative aspects of American history. The administration cut funding to small archives and museums across the country but later restored grants to those aligned with Trump’s vision for the celebration of the 250th anniversary.

During his first term, his administration halted efforts to put Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill, with Trump criticizing the Obama-era decision as “pure political correctness.”

David Ekbladh, a professor of history at Tufts University, said Trump’s focus on advancing a traditional version of history has intensified since his first term. “During his first administration, Trump pardoned Susan B. Anthony,” Ekbladh said. In 1872, nearly 50 years before women gained the right to vote, Anthony was arrested for wrongfully and willfully voting.

“But now, even the suffragists are seen as outside the pale of what they want as part of our remembered past.”