The White House chose the nation's 250th birthday to deliver a pointed verdict on the institution charged with preserving its story. On Independence Day, the Domestic Policy Council released a sweeping report accusing the Smithsonian Institution, and the National Museum of American History in particular, of abandoning patriotic scholarship in favor of what the administration calls "extreme political activism."
The report, titled "Saving America's Story," runs 162 pages and lands squarely on the leadership of Director Anthea Hartig, who has run the museum since 2019. Its central conclusion is blunt: Smithsonian officials "cannot be trusted to tell America's story honestly and in a way that is inspiring, unifying, and worthy of our great republic."
President Trump ordered the review after signing a March 2025 presidential action aimed at combating what the White House described as "divisive narratives" and "improper ideology" across the government's top museums. The result is a document that reads less like a policy memo and more like an indictment, one that could set the stage for a leadership overhaul at one of America's most visited cultural institutions.
The Domestic Policy Council's case against the museum rests on Hartig's own words, drawn from lectures, presentations, and internal communications. The New York Post reported that the document quotes Hartig describing history as a "prime tool of social justice" and stating that her team works "to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors."
That is not a hostile paraphrase. Those are her words.
The report also cites Hartig discussing the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the very milestone the nation marked this Fourth of July. She told an audience the museum profession needs "to figure out" how "we're going to" "problematize" that anniversary, adding that "loving America is very complicated."
In another passage, Hartig described her own background in strikingly ideological terms, saying she had been "propped up as I was and I am by the cushions of whiteness and the pillows of the bourgeoisie." During a presentation to history students, she remarked on the difficulty of escaping an "America First" mentality:
"It's hard to get out of the 'America First' mentality, and that's, we didn't talk much about that, but we wrestle, I wrestle, with that all the time."
For the director of the National Museum of American History to describe love of country as a problem to be wrestled with, rather than a sentiment to be honored, tells you a great deal about how the institution has drifted.
The report goes beyond leadership rhetoric to examine what visitors actually encounter inside the museum. It accuses the NMAH of requiring exhibits to tie into a fixed menu of progressive themes: "race/identity, gender/sexuality, climate change, immigration/migrations, economic inequality, technological change, and nationalism/globalism."
Specific exhibits singled out include one called "Girlhood (it's complicated)" and various anti-racism displays. The report charges the museum with minimizing the Founding Fathers and treating traditional patriotic narratives "with suspicion."
The Washington Examiner reported that the museum has no major exhibits dedicated to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, the Continental Congress, the Pilgrims, or the American Revolution. The Examiner's account noted that Hartig removed "American history" from the museum's own mission statement, replacing it with language about "creating a just and compassionate future."
Think about that for a moment. The National Museum of American History dropped "American history" from its mission.
The Domestic Policy Council's summary of the museum's message to young visitors was withering: "In short, NMAH's repeated message to young visitors is: 'Be a social and political activist.'"
Breitbart reported that the document highlights specific categories of concern, including what the report labels "Anti-White Activism," "Illegal Alien Activism," and "Transgender Activism" within the museum's programming. The Domestic Policy Council cited several lectures in which Hartig was described as advocating on behalf of illegal immigrants. The report also suggested exhibits should include "the entirety of the Americas, not just our part of North America", a framing that treats the United States as just another territory rather than a distinct republic with its own founding principles.
The report's language frames the problem as "institutional capture", a term that resonates far beyond the museum world. As the document states:
"National Museum of American History NMAH, by the intention and at the direction of current Museum and Smithsonian leadership, has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love."
Breitbart's account also quoted the report as finding that "Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens." The report added that "NMAH fails in the basic task of illuminating our heritage."
A Smithsonian spokesperson pushed back in a statement to the New York Post, offering a single sentence of defense:
"For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so."
That response sidesteps every specific allegation in the report. It does not address Hartig's remarks about "problematizing" the nation's founding. It does not explain why "American history" was removed from the museum's mission statement. It does not account for the absence of exhibits on the American Revolution or the Founding Fathers.
Claiming 180 years of nonpartisan service is not a rebuttal. It is an appeal to institutional prestige, exactly the kind of deflection that erodes public trust.
The AP reported that the report signals President Trump may be preparing to install his own leadership team at the Smithsonian, part of a broader effort to overhaul cultural and historic institutions the administration views as ideologically captured. The AP noted that Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch is the first African American to lead the institution, and Hartig is the first woman to hold the NMAH director role, details that will inevitably be used to frame any leadership changes as attacks on diversity rather than responses to documented ideological drift.
The AP also reported that this action fits within a wider pattern of Trump administration interventions at cultural institutions, including the Kennedy Center, Columbia University, and historical sites in Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro offered a counter-perspective: "There's not one individual narrative that a president gets about our history. Any president should want to make sure that that full history is shared."
That sounds reasonable in the abstract. But the issue is not whether the museum should tell a "full" history. The issue is whether the museum's leadership has replaced honest, inclusive history with a specific ideological project, one that treats the nation's founding as a problem to be "problematized" and patriotism as a bias to be overcome.
The Smithsonian operates 21 museums. It is funded by American taxpayers. The National Museum of American History sits on the National Mall, steps from the monuments to the men and women who built, defended, and sustained this republic.
When President Lyndon Johnson spoke at the museum's 1964 opening ceremony, he charged it to "foster patriotism." Whatever one thinks of Johnson's broader record, that directive was straightforward. The museum existed to help Americans understand and appreciate their country's story, not to deconstruct it.
The White House report documents, in Hartig's own words, a leadership philosophy that treats that original mission as naive at best and harmful at worst. History as a "prime tool of social justice." Exhibits designed to "reframe the traditional celebratory narrative." A director who finds it "hard to get out of the 'America First' mentality" at the National Museum of American History.
The report does not yet specify what concrete changes the administration will pursue. Whether leadership removals, funding conditions, or congressional hearings follow remains to be seen. The Washington Examiner has already called for congressional investigations. The White House has laid the factual groundwork.
What is no longer in dispute is the gap between what the museum was built to do and what its current leadership has chosen to do with it. The 162-page report did not have to manufacture that gap. Anthea Hartig's own words did the work.
A museum that cannot say "American history" in its own mission statement has already told you everything you need to know about whose story it intends to tell, and whose it does not.
