In the latest in a broadside against culture he believes to be overly liberal, President Donald Trump announced his desire to impose reforms at the Smithsonian Institution on Thursday by issuing an executive order that targets financing for programs that promote “divisive narratives” and “improper ideology.”
The “founding principles” of the United States are portrayed in a “negative light,” according to Trump, who said that there has been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past ten years to rewrite American history by substituting “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth.”
Vice President JD Vance, a member of the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, is tasked with supervising efforts to “remove improper ideology” from all parts of the organization, including its museums, education and research centers, and the National Zoo, according to the order he signed behind closed doors.
It is the Republican president’s most recent attack on institutions of higher learning and the arts, which he views as being out of touch with conservative values. To revamp programming, including the yearly Kennedy Center Honors awards ceremony, Trump recently appointed himself chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
Additionally, the administration recently threatened to withhold several hundred million dollars in federal funds from Columbia University, forcing the Ivy League school to adopt several policy adjustments. The executive order also alludes to the restoration of Confederate monuments and statues, many of which were removed or replaced nationwide following the 2020 Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, which Trump and other conservatives oppose.
They are now removing exhibits and artifacts from National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC because of a Trump executive order to remove what he calls “improper ideology” from Smithsonian museums smh….Black history is also American history and they’re clearly… pic.twitter.com/pwb7TrJj3M
— Wu Tang is for the Children (@WUTangKids) April 28, 2025
In addition, the decree mandates that Philadelphia’s Independence Hall be improved by July 4, 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Trump specifically criticized the American Art Museum, the Women’s History Museum, which is still under construction, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016 next to the White House.
After Trump’s administration seized control of the Smithsonian Institution’s messaging in March, the iconic museum network has been accused of rewriting history.
Trump Removed from Smithsonian Exhibit of Impeached Presidents After MAGA Seizes Control of Museums… pic.twitter.com/7GsCKO8VAQ
— StridentConservative (@StridentConserv) August 1, 2025
“Museums in our Nation’s capital should be places where individuals go to learn — not to be subjected to ideological indoctrination or divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” Trump said, reports APNews. As directed by Trump, Vance will also collaborate with the White House budget office to ensure that future Smithsonian Institution funding isn’t allocated to initiatives that “promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy, degrade shared American values, or divide Americans based on race.”
Additionally, Trump wants to make sure that the museum of women’s history honors women rather than “recognize men as women in any respect.”
The largest museum, educational, and research complex in the world is the Smithsonian Institution. It includes the National Zoo and 21 institutions. Washington’s National Mall is lined by eleven museums.
Congress created the organization using funds from British scientist James Smithson, who bequeathed his estate to the US to build “at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.”
