The Daily - The Push to Revise American History at the Smithsonian

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

In the last few weeks, the Trump administration has turned its sights on the Smithsonian, the latest target in a campaign to remake cultural institutions in its image.Officials are trying to change exhibits at the center of the country’s culture wars and reshape American history at one of the largest museum complexes in the world.Robin Pogrebin, who covers cultural institutions for The Times, discusses the clash over who gets to tell the American story.Guest: Robin Pogrebin, a New York Times culture reporter who covers cultural institutions, the art world and architecture.Background reading: The White House announced a comprehensive review of Smithsonian exhibitions.The Trump administration’s plan to, in effect, audit the content of Smithsonian museums drew criticism from groups that represent scholars and promote free speech.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Mark Schiefelbein/Associated Press Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily. President Trump is now calling for an overhaul to the museums in the United States, the president accusing the Smithsonian of making our country look horrible by focusing on topics like, quote, how bad slavery was. In the last few weeks, the Trump administration has turned its sights on the Smithsonian, the latest target in a campaign to remake cultural institutions in its image. The White House will be reviewing material in some of the museums to make sure that they align with the president's view of history.

Officials are attempting to change exhibits at the center of the country's culture wars and reshape American history at one of the largest museum complexes in the world. We want the museums to treat our country fairly. We want the museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or a racist manner. Today, my colleague Robin Poghriban on the fight over who gets to tell the American story and how. It's Wednesday, September 3rd.

Robin, since taking office, the Trump administration has been trying to exert control over some of America's most important cultural institutions. And it really feels like we're seeing that effort crescendo at the Smithsonian, which you have been paying a lot of attention to. You are a reporter who has for a very long time covered arts and culture in the United States. Can you tell us what has been happening? Yeah, so it's been a remarkable few months that amounts to essentially a wholesale attack on the arts. I think what's been happening you can see most clearly in a recent post from President Trump himself, where he described museums as the last remaining segment of woke. And he called the Smithsonian in particular out of control. And to go after

an institution as big and prestigious and as critical to American culture as the Smithsonian is just a really dramatic escalation. Why does the attack on the Smithsonian feel like such an escalation? Well, the Smithsonian has both historic and symbolic power. It is comprised of 21 museums, as well as libraries, research centers, and the National Zoo. A lot of those museums are on the National Mall. It is very much a tourist destination. It's free, and also it is considered America's attic, a repository of U.S. culture and history. It has important pieces of art and artifacts from all over the world and things that are very familiar and iconic to us, like the Star-Spangled Banner flag that originally inspired the National Anthem,

the Wright Brothers' first airplane. But it also has things like the original lunch counter from the civil rights sit-ins and some of the signage from Japanese internment camps in California. So really a wide-ranging collection. Yeah, exactly. And the Smithsonian gets more than half of its one billion. annual budget from the government, 62%, but that said, this is an independent institution. It has historically operated as such, and that means that artistic decisions are made by

museum directors and curators, and not by the board, and not by the government. And it has been extremely successful as an institution running itself and doing its own thing. And that is why this is such a big deal to have this kind of an intervention from not only the government, but from the president himself, taking an interest in the minutia of what these museums show. All of these efforts to interfere in the independence of the Smithsonian and sort of this general takeover of the arts, where does that story start exactly? Actually, I think the story really starts with another cultural icon in Washington, the Kennedy

Center for the performing arts. It's not part of the Smithsonian, but it is in the nation's Capitol. And it's where President Trump first focused his attention when he returned to office. In February, he accused the center of programming that was too woke. He complained about drag queens performing there. He said in one tweet that it was anti-American propaganda. And he went so far as to eliminate the Biden appointees on the board, to get himself elected as chairman, and to install an interim president of one of his kind of most loyal, associates. And it was also striking that the chairman of the Kennedy Center, David Rubinstein, decided to just kind of go quietly. There wasn't any real outrage or protest in reaction to this.

And I think it kind of wet the appetite of the Trump administration for more. They saw the success of this playbook and therefore turned to another kind of quintuptych. essentially American institution, which was the Smithsonian. And what did President Trump do? So in March, the president issues an executive order that essentially accuses the Smithsonian of trying to promote a divisive, race-centered ideology, describing what he sees as a revisionist movement that undermines the United States in terms of narratives that. portray America and Western values in a way that's harmful and oppressive.

So instead, what he did was intensified his push to impose his vision of American history. And that is one that is more positive, that demands that the Smithsonian make itself into a symbol of inspiration and American greatness, rather than focus on the more negative aspects of our heritage. So what does that look like exactly? Well, it starts with Trump publicly calling for the firing of the National Portrait Gallery director Kim Sayett. The National Portrait Gallery is perhaps one of the most important Smithsonian museums because it contains all of these what are considered official portraits of every president. And those are a huge draw for the public. And Sayette made no secret of her interest in reimagining the museum. and making meaningful changes. She told us in 2022 that for centuries, portraits and busts in the museum were reserved for capturing images of the elite, and that that had left a distorted historical record that was largely limited to, quote, the wealthy, the pale, and the male. And it was actually that very phrase that the Trump administration picked up on

and calling her, quote, a highly partisan person and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position. And so how does the portrait gallery respond to all of this? Well, initially, what the Smithsonian Board of Regents did, because that is the kind of governing body that runs the Smithsonian, was they said that this is not the purview of the president, it's ours, but we will take your concerns into consideration and do our own review. In other words, thank you so much for your input,

but you can't just fire the head of one of our museums. That's not your job. That's our job, right. But we will consider your complaints. We will evaluate the portrait gallery for bias along with all of our other museums and kind of make a good faith effort to respond to your concerns. That obviously did not prove sufficient for the Trump administration. And also actually the pressure that was brought to bear actually became too much. And she left of her own accord within two weeks of all of this. Wow. So basically, even though the Smithsonian maybe tried to seem like it was compromising, the administration does eventually get what it wanted. Like, she resigns under threat of firing. Yeah. It also spoke to a effort on the part of the Smithsonian governing board to walk this line between trying to satisfy the Trump administration and not antagonize it while adhere to its own kind of mission and principles. And the person at the heart of that and leading that effort is its secretary, Lonnie Bunch. And who is he? What is his background? Lonnie Bunch is the first black secretary to serve at the Smithsonian.

He's been in the job for six years. And he kind of made a name for himself as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened to great fanfare in 2016 and last year had 1.6 million visitors. And what Bunch succeeded in doing is making sure that this was not a controversial museum, as most Smithsonian museums have not been over time. They are generally fairly benign and not provocative historically. And even though this was a museum that was about some very difficult topics, Bunch managed to raise money for it and kind of enlist both Democrats and Republicans in supporting it. Right. Basically, his job at all of these.

museums, is to make them as open and inviting to the general public as possible. Is that right? That's right. These should be museums that appeal to a broad public and ideally don't alienate any particular groups, and it's a place where all Americans feel comfortable coming. But walking that kind of moderate, centrist line has become more and more difficult, and it really escalated over the summer where the artist Amy Sherald was supposed to have a major exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. So Amy Sherald is a prominent painter. She's been widely celebrated, and she was the most famous. She really broke out with this official portrait of Michelle Obama.

And the artist has a big retrospective that was just in New York and was supposed to travel on next to Washington this fall. But there was one painting in that exhibition that a picture. apparently started to make some members of the Smithsonian board nervous. Why is that? Tell me about the painting. Well, the painting depicts a transgender statue of liberty. It's called transforming liberty. It really shows a proud black trans woman holding the torch. And it's emblematic of Charles' work, which often has political undertones and raises issues of gender identity and race.

And I think the Smithsonian Board started to worry that this was exactly the kind of hot-button issue that would set off the Trump administration and they were not spoiling for another fight. So they started to have internal discussions about perhaps pulling it from the show. And when Cheryl got wind of this idea, she was not happy about it and chose to cancel the entire thing. She basically felt like the museum had crossed some kind of red line into, it sounds like censorship, basically. Yeah, exactly. And I think what was also troubling about this was this was the Smithsonian deciding to censor itself, even in advance of any complaints from the Trump administration. Did the administration react at all to her pulling out, since they hadn't even asked for it? The administration celebrated this decision and almost seemed to try to take credit for it. a White House official described the work as an effort to reinterpret one of our nation's most sacred symbols

through a divisive and ideological lens. So this was exactly the kind of effort or kind of curtailing of certain artistic expression that the Trump administration has been seeking. You know, it really sounds like the Smithsonian is really stuck between a rock and a hard place because they're trying to maintain some level of independence without angering the Trump administration too much. And yet, they're still making all of these concessions. And so I wonder how far are these concessions going and actually appeasing the Trump administration? Not far at all. I mean, if anything, the pressure ramps up. On August 12th, the administration announced what essentially amounted to an audit of exhibitions, both those currently underway and those planned for the future.

It gave the Smithsonian a deadline of 120 days to make concrete changes. that it wanted to see. And in that time, the Smithsonian had to replace any language that the White House deemed divisive or driven by ideology with descriptions that the administration found acceptable. So this is a very new challenge to the Smithsonian's independence and mission. And it really begs the question of how is Lonnie Bunch? and the Smithsonian Institution going to respond. We'll be right back. Robin, you said that the administration

has really started raising some specific objections at the Smithsonian. So can you give us a few examples of the exhibits that they actually have taken issue with? Well, they actually come back to the Smithsonian with a real list of some of the exhibitions and content that they find objectionable. In a document that's titled President Trump is right about the Smithsonian, they highlight several examples. Among them is a exhibition that features art commemorating the act of crossing the southern border. They call out an installation of the Pride flag, a stop motion drawing animation, examining the career of Anthony Fauci. But what they really focus on is the issue of slavery and feeling that the Smithsonian over-emphasizes slavery in its exhibitions. They cite, for example, an installation at the American.

American History Museum on Benjamin Franklin that looks at his achievements around electricity, but also talks about the fact that the people who enabled those experiments were enslaved people in his household. And this is reflected in the post that Trump put up recently, where he said that he considered the Smithsonian out of control, where everything discussed, quote, is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was. And a lot of what the Trump administration is essentially reacting to is a kind of wholesale racial reckoning that took place in the wake of the George Floyd murder and has been underway at institutions around the country since 2020.

How did that reckoning play out specifically in the museum world and the art world? Well, I think that it was a real kind of moment of truth for these institutions where they started, to take a hard look at themselves and whether or not they accurately reflected the sort of diversity and range in our country. And that had to do with everything from what was on their walls, what they showed, to the kind of artwork they acquired, to the leadership who sat in the boardrooms and the directors of these museums. The Baltimore Museum of Art, for example, pledged to acquire only work by female artists for a year. The Met also acknowledged, that it had neglected the Harlem Renaissance.

And there were many people, you know, in the art world and in the broader culture who felt that this was a revision that was overdue. But there was also a camp that felt that it amounted to an overcorrection, that perhaps it had gone too far. And that when you're dealing with someone like Ben Franklin, shouldn't we perhaps be focusing on his scientific contributions and not so much his flaws or his history of owning slaves?

Obviously, though, figuring out how to portray a complicated history is not a new idea for museums and certainly not a new idea for the Smithsonian. And I think a lot of people understand that the work of historians and curators is in part, maybe large part, figuring out how to portray and revisit and reimagine, perhaps ugly parts of our history. Right. This is definitely not the first time the Smithsonian has been at the center of a debate about how he's. history is told. One famous example is from the 1990s, the Air and Space Museum planned an exhibition around the bomber plane called the Anola Gay, which dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. And originally, it included details about Japanese victims, and it talked about it as a mixed moral legacy.

And there was a real outcry from veterans groups and members of Congress who felt that the thrust of the exhibit had become too negative. And in response to that, there were actually adjustments made to kind of moderate the telling of that episode so that it didn't necessarily dwell on some of the uglier aspects of the bomb. So there is a long history of debating how history gets told, but this is an unusual instance of the presidential administration imposing its will on how that story gets told. Which brings us to what is happening right now with the Smithsonian and the pressure for the Smithsonian to change what it actually displays in its museums

against what some people would say is its very mission, which is to be independent. So where do things stand with the administration's demands? Well, the response from the Smithsonian really lies with its governing board, which is called the Board of Regents. It has 17 members that include members of Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, as well as civilians. Interestingly, it also includes the vice president, J.D. Vance, and it is overseen and run by John Roberts, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. And Chief Justice Ms. Roberts famously is an institutionalist who is looking to avoid controversy, to focus on procedure and rules and not to enter partisan debates. So we're waiting. It's been several weeks. We know Bunch had lunch with the president last week, but we don't know exactly what happened there except that the meeting was described as cordial.

but there is still no official response from the Smithsonian to the White House's list of demands and it's a big moment for Bunch and the Smithsonian. Will they take a stand and enforce the independence of the Smithsonian or not?

What would it look like for Lonnie Bunch to take a stand and what would it look like if that stand didn't work? Well, I think if Lani Bunch says this is our purview and not yours then the Trump administration is likely to not be satisfied with that because basically the Smithsonian would be refusing to abide by this mandate.

Right now, Trump doesn't have the votes on the board to dominate decision-making, but that could change in a short amount of time. In a few months, several members are due to cycle off, and members do need to be approved by Congress, and Trump could have a lot more influence in appointing those who succeed them, and then he would have control of the board going forward. And that's largely what is expected to happen. This is really reminding me of this old adage about how history gets written by the victors, right, like by the people in charge. And Trump is the one in

charge. And he's trying to, as you said, impose his version of history on the institutions that help define it for the broad American public. We're obviously in a moment of backlash against what's some people see as an over-correction in 2020. And so I wonder, is what we're seeing now just another swing of the cultural pendulum that could, of course, swing back with a new administration? Or is what we're seeing more enduring? I do think that this is a moment where larger questions are on the table, and we're not sure of the answers.

And historically, art institutions and artists have been. kind of the watchdogs of our nation to some extent and the victors in culture wars that free expression has carried the day. And this is a case where you actually see an administration and a political point of view kind of shutting that down. And I think there is some concern that that could have lasting, chilling effects.

It's certainly one we're already seeing in institutions across the country besides the Smithsonian, a sort of anticipation of needing to be silenced. And I had lunched today with a European museum director who said that he saw this as a frightening pattern in terms of having seen this happen in other countries under authoritarian regimes where propaganda infects almost everything.

And there is worry about what this moment means for scholarly independence and artistic expression. A lot of museum leaders feel this is a moment to take a firm stand in favor of open debate and critical thinking and freedom of expression, which are foundational values of American cultural institutions. At the same time, they also want to protect their organizations from landing in the crosshairs of the Trump administration right now, which could threaten them in a more long-term way. And I think they're also seeing that outrage doesn't have a whole lot of effect. So the result is places just keeping their heads down.

Robin, if the president was, in fact, able to gain control of America's attic, as you put it earlier, I wonder what you think that means just in terms of curating the story of America and presenting it to the public. I think what it means is that he would have remade these institutions in his own image as kind of an extenuation of his values, his worldview, and his priorities. I think it will also be a simplified version of America, a story with kind of less nuance and complexity. And interestingly, in Lonnie Bunch's memoir, he recalls during the first Trump administration walking the president through the National Museum

of African American History and Culture when it had just opened and that the president didn't want to see anything too difficult. And Bunch writes that actually it's really important to look at history's fullness and complexity, even though that can be hard to do. All of this is coming to a head as the president has talked a lot about the upcoming 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence next summer.

I think the president has made clear he would like that to be largely celebratory. and it really raises questions about what kind of a country we're going to be commemorating on an anniversary like that. Is it one where we are just sort of applauding progress as triumphant? Or are we looking more frankly and squarely at progress in all its complexity as being both our successes and our failures? that mix is also very much a part of who we are and what there is to celebrate.

Robin, thank you so much. Thank you for having me. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. Google avoided the harshest penalties in a landmark antitrust case when a federal judge ruled on Tuesday that while Google needed to hand over some of its search data to rivals, it did not have to give in to the government's toughest demands, including spinning off its Chrome browser.

The ruling is a blow to the government's push in recent years to challenge the dominance of the biggest tech companies, including Google, Apple, Amazon, and META, which both the Biden and Trump administrations have accused of anti-competitive behavior. And in a stunning departure from the traditional tactics of America's war on drugs, President Trump said on Tuesday

that the military had carried out a strike against a boat run by a Venezuelan, quote, narco-terrorist organization. The move comes as the Trump administration has stepped up its belligerent rhetoric about fighting drug cartels and has labeled Venezuela's president, Nicholas Maduro, as a terrorist cartel leader. Today's episode was produced by Sydney Harper, Olivia Nat, and Claire Tennis Getter. It was edited by Patricia Willens and was engineered by Chris Wood.

That's it for the Daily. I'm Rachel Abrams. See you tomorrow.