In his latest salvo against the Smithsonian Institution, President Trump called on the organization to honor George Washington with a 30-foot “Colossus statue” outside its National Museum of American History, along with a five-year exhibition about Washington’s legacy “beginning now.”
“During our Nation’s 250th Anniversary Year, the Museum has failed to give George Washington and our other Founding Fathers the celebration they deserve,” Mr. Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Friday night.
The proposed statue would replace “Infinity,” an abstract sculpture by José de Rivera that was dedicated in 1967. The Smithsonian describes that work as the first piece of modern art commissioned by the federal government under the Art in Architecture Program for the National Mall in Washington.
“That strange modernist sculpture tells visitors nothing about America, inspires no one, and honors none of our Great American Heroes,” Mr. Trump wrote. “George Washington does. He is easily America’s Greatest Hero. Without him, our Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist.”
In an additional post on Friday, Mr. Trump said he was also asking the Smithsonian to install an 11-foot statue of Washington in the museum’s Flag Hall in time for Constitution Day on Sept. 17. The statue was created for the recent Freedom 250 IndyCar race.
The Smithsonian did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Mr. Trump’s posts reflect his longstanding call for a return to what he calls “patriotic” history, as well as his push to promote classical architecture across Washington, including through monumental works like his proposed 250-foot-tall triumphal arch and National Garden of American Heroes.
It also extends his persistent criticisms of the Smithsonian, which he has accused of promoting an overly negative view of American history. In a March 2025 executive order, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” Mr. Trump accused the Smithsonian of having come under the influence of “a divisive, race-centered ideology” and called on it to return to “its rightful place as a symbol of inspiration and American greatness.”
Last week, in what many saw as a turning point in Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign against the Smithsonian, the institution’s leader, Lonnie G. Bunch III, 73, announced that he would step down by the end of the year.
Since the March 2025 executive order, Mr. Bunch, the first Black scholar and the first historian to lead the Smithsonian, has been involved in a tense standoff with the White House, handing over extensive information about several of its museums while also defending the institution’s work and independence. (The Smithsonian, which includes 21 museums and the National Zoo, has long operated independently of the executive branch, though it receives about two-thirds of its roughly $1 billion annual budget from the federal government.)
The treatment of the nation’s founders has been a particular flashpoint for Mr. Trump, who has made extolling them a centerpiece of his administration’s historical projects for the 250th anniversary.
In a scathing report issued on July 4, the White House accused the National Museum of American History of promoting “extreme political activism,” while also neglecting the heroism of the founding fathers, who the report claims are presented chiefly through their connections with slavery.
Mr. Trump’s social media posts on Friday reiterated some specific criticisms from that report, including the assertion that the museum contains no reference to Washington’s crossing of the Delaware in December 1776, which he called “one of the greatest moments and turning points of the Revolution.”
The famous depiction of Washington’s crossing is emblazoned across the exterior of the Freedom Trucks, the Trump-backed mobile history museum that is currently touring the country. That exhibit includes a video greeting from an A.I.-generated Washington, along with one from Mr. Trump.
The Trump administration has also moved to revise depictions of Washington at some sites controlled by the executive branch. In February, the National Park Service abruptly removed interpretive panels at the President’s House, a federal site in Philadelphia that focused heavily on enslaved people Washington brought there during his presidency, when it served as the executive mansion.
The new panels, installed in July, discuss slavery as a general matter, but soften or eliminate references to Washington’s sometimes harsh treatment of the enslaved people he owned and his dogged efforts to recapture those who escaped.
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