Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III announced his retirement Tuesday following President Donald Trump’s months-long campaign against the institution, The New York Times reported.
Trump has targeted Smithsonian exhibits during his second administration for teaching U.S. history in a “woke or racist manner.” Last year, Trump ordered a “far-reaching review” of all Smithsonian exhibits designed to eliminate “improper, divisive or anti-American ideology,” which some critics have decried as “weaponizing history.”
Bunch told the Times that while it was not Trump’s campaign against the Smithsonian that led to his retirement, the frequent attacks were “stressful.”
“It was really just saying, now’s the time. I’m a fighter. I have to be honest, it has been stressful. And at a certain point, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone,” Bunch told the Times.
“My goal has been to win, not to make me feel good. To win — to protect the Smithsonian — there were times I would fight, make clear what the red lines were. And there were other times I let things go.”
Described by the Times as a “widely respected historian,” Bunch had led the Smithsonian as its secretary for seven years, and had spent “nearly 40 years in various roles at the Smithsonian.”
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