In a broadside posted to its website just as Fourth of July fireworks were lighting up skies around the country on Saturday, the White House faulted the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for what it said was a failure to properly celebrate the nation’s heritage, arguing that it had become a tool of political activism intent on denigrating the American story.
The 162-page report, by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, represents a sweeping attack on the museum’s presentation of American history. It is the latest step in the Trump administration’s campaign to pressure the Smithsonian into conforming to what President Trump has described as “patriotic” history.
While the report concludes that the Smithsonian Institution — which oversees 21 museums and the National Zoo — “has not met its obligations to the American people,” it places particular blame on the National Museum of American History.
That museum has been the subject of “ideological capture,” the report says, accusing it of an anti-white bias and, in particular, of minimizing and distorting the nation’s founding. Those actions, the report asserts, have “moved the museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”
The report, titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” says the museum does not recount U.S. history “clearly and fairly.”
“Our central finding is not that the museum has simply added overlooked stories, corrected perceived errors or broadened its historical scope,” it says. “Rather, it is 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 takes issue with some specific exhibits. But it “main concerns” are with what is not there.
“A visitor to the museum today,” it says, “will find no major exhibit dedicated to America’s founding era, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, other founding fathers, the Continental Congress, the pilgrims, the Puritans or major moments of the American Revolution, such as Washington’s crossing of the Delaware.” Instead, it claims, many founders are presented chiefly in terms of their connection to slavery.
The Smithsonian’s secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch III, declined to comment through a spokeswoman. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The Domestic Policy Council, which wrote the report, is a White House group tasked with developing the president’s domestic agenda and advising him on issues like education and health care. It is led by Vince Haley, who has spearheaded the administration’s commemoration of the nation’s 250th anniversary, including Mr. Trump’s plan to build a 250-foot arch in Washington. Mr. Haley has also been credited with the idea for a National Garden of American Heroes, a patriotic sculpture garden that the president floated in his first term.
The Smithsonian has long been regarded as independent of the executive branch. But in an effort to have much greater influence on cultural matters in Washington, Mr. Trump has focused on the Smithsonian since March 2025, when he issued an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
In that order, in which he called on Vice President JD Vance to overhaul the Smithsonian with the help of Congress, the president described a “revisionist movement” across the country that “seeks to undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
Mr. Trump has since announced that he was dismissing the director of the institution’s National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet, calling her “a highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI.” (The Smithsonian did not follow through — publicly insisting it controlled personnel matters — but Ms. Sajet resigned, saying in a statement that her decision was in the best interests of the institution.)
The White House also issued an ultimatum to turn over Smithsonian records or face potential budget cuts. In response, Mr. Bunch reasserted the institution’s independence but said additional materials had been submitted in an effort to be “transparent and open.”
Some 62 percent of the Smithsonian’s annual $1 billion budget is derived from federal sources, including funds directly appropriated by Congress. The Trump administration proposed cutting the Smithsonian’s budget by about 12 percent in the 2026 fiscal year, but Congress has maintained the institution’s federal funding.
The report issued on Saturday summons the specter of a funding withdrawal, citing how the president’s executive order directed Mr. Vance to work with the Office of Management and Budget to “prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy.”
Without specifying the exact remedy, the report urges, “In light of its federal status and the fact that it receives over one billion dollars in federal funding from the American taxpayer every year, the president has a duty and obligation to seek reforms of the Smithsonian.”
The report criticizes the museum for viewing “traditional patriotic narratives” with suspicion or contempt. It says the museum endorses illegal immigration and advocates transgender issues, while it focuses on Christianity as “an instrument of conquest, exclusion or cultural erasure,” rather than the “constructive role of Christian belief and Christian institutions in shaping the nation and its freedoms.”
It takes particular aim at Anthea M. Hartig, the museum’s director, faulting her for what it says was a lack of objectivity and for “advancing an ideological agenda contradictory to the museum’s founding purpose of fostering patriotism.”
“To the extent that there is a story told at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, it is not one of ‘the victory of freedom and genius of our country’ but one of regret, tragedy and shame,” the report adds.
Ms. Hartig did not respond to a request for comment.
The report immediately drew pushback from some in the historical profession, which has been sharply critical of Mr. Trump’s efforts to enforce his view of history.
Sarah Weicksel, the executive director of the American Historical Association, the country’s largest group of history scholars, questioned the report’s claims that the museum neglects the nation’s founding and its founders.
“The museum has extraordinary objects that tell the history of the Revolution, including the newly restored Gunboat Philadelphia,” she said, referring to a Revolutionary-era warship, “Visitors also encounter George Washington, his leadership prowess and the American Revolution in ‘The Price of Freedom,’” another exhibit.
But some conservatives commended the report.
“The National Museum of American History is the tip of the iceberg.” said Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has called for Mr. Bunch’s dismissal. “It’s not the only museum that erases our history and our heritage — all the other museums do. We have to go back to celebrating our country and its great achievements.”
It comes as the Smithsonian faces potentially significant turnover in its governing Board of Regents, a 17-member panel that includes Democratic and Republican elected officials as well as nine citizen members.
Mr. Bunch has led the Smithsonian since 2019, and his relationship with the White House is, at best, strained. He has enjoyed the support of the board in asserting that the Smithsonian, created by Congress as a federal trust, is independent.
But the museum is currently working with a diminished board since the terms of two Smithsonian trustees ended in March, and their replacements have yet to be named as the traditional process of filling the board has slowed amid Mr. Trump’s efforts to gain control of the institution.
Over the past few months, the Smithsonian had managed to avoid further confrontations with Trump officials, perhaps in part because it had made tweaks like altering some wall text and because the president has been focused on other matters, like the war in Iran.
But the new report makes clear that the White House has grown fed up with the Smithsonian.
“The serious concerns raised in this report are not about a few exhibits or a few controversial labels,” the report says. “As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian’s flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads: ‘Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.’”
Derrick Bryson Taylor contributed reporting.
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