The president targeted the Smithsonian with an executive order. Its American history museum changed its impeachment exhibit soon after.
Probably not a coincidence:
- Trump signs an executive order about the Smithsonian, targeting “divisive†content
- Trump then ousts the Smithsonian’s portrait gallery director
- The Smithsonian then removes a reference to Trump’s impeachment from a history exhibit www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-08-01T14:42:09.753Z
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/smithsonian-removes-trump-references-exhibit-presidential-impeachments-rcna222436
And let’s not forget that museums are on the list, too. The Washington Post reported:
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in July removed references to President Donald Trump’s two impeachments from an exhibit display. A person familiar with the exhibit plans, who was not authorized to discuss them publicly, said the change came about as part of a content review that the Smithsonian agreed to undertake following pressure from the White House to remove an art museum director.
As someone who wrote a book about efforts to rewrite history and what I described as
“the Republicans’ war on the recent past,” I couldn’t help but marvel at such a brazen example of an institution succumbing to presidential pressure and altering a historical display about events Americans already saw with their own eyes......
But this story comes against an important backdrop. In late March, Trump signed an executive order that directly took aim at the
Smithsonian and its museums, directing officials to eliminate “improper, divisive, or anti-American” ideology from the institution. The same order accused the Biden administration of, among other things, using the Smithsonian to advance what the Republican president described as a “corrosive” ideology.
How did the White House define words such as “improper,” “divisive,” “anti-American” and “corrosive” in an ideological context? The order didn’t say. Presumably, Trump knows it when he sees it. Was there any proof of the Biden administration misusing the Smithsonian? No.....
The title of the White House’s order from March said
the directive is intended to restore “sanity to American history.” Given the circumstances, “sanity” is not the word that comes to mind.
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