[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2285620655-594×594-1.jpeg?w=594″]<\/p>\n
\n\tPresident Donald Trump escalated his battle with the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History Friday, ordering signage outside the institution to flag what an executive order calls \u201cinaccurate information\u201d presented in its exhibits.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe extraordinary directive comes amid intensifying Republican scrutiny of the Smithsonian branch, which was the subject of a recent 162-page report accusing its director, Anthea M. Hartig, of replacing \u201chistorical education\u201d with \u201cextreme political activism.\u201d According to the order, the signage will tell visitors that the museum\u2019s exhibits \u201cshould be renovated\u201d to align with the report and direct them to locations where, in the administration\u2019s view, American history is more accurately reflected. The administration did not specify which locations the signage would direct visitors to.<\/p>\n
\n\tTrump\u2019s order comes only days after Hartig faced two congressional hearings over alleged political bias in her museum\u2019s curation and questions about her loyalty to the United States. Hartig, an explicit target of the White House report, rejected its central claims, defending the museum\u2019s scholarship as \u201crigorous\u201d and \u201cfact-based\u201d and saying it aims to tell a fuller story of America through \u201chistorical evidence, competing perspectives\u201d and \u201cenduring debates.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe directive also ordered several high-ranking government officials, including the Secretary of the Interior and the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to \u201crestore trust in the Smithsonian Institution\u201d and ensure its compliance with the White House\u2019s findings. As first noted by the New York Times<\/em>, the inclusion of the budget office appears to reference the Smithsonian\u2019s reliance on federal funding. The directive also named the assistant to the president for domestic policy, whose Domestic Policy Council published the White House\u2019s report on the Smithsonian.<\/p>\n \n\tFriday\u2019s directive cited President Trump\u2019s March 2025 executive order, \u201cRestoring Truth and Sanity to American History,\u201d which accused the Smithsonian of failing to properly celebrate \u201cthe remarkable achievements of the United States\u201d by casting \u201cits founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light,\u201d particularly ahead of the country\u2019s 250th anniversary earlier this month.<\/p>\n \n\tCiting the museum\u2019s failure to \u201cappropriately honor\u201d the \u201csigners of the Declaration of Independence,\u201d Trump has now directed government agencies to \u201cinstall temporary exhibits or signage on N.P.S.-maintained sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public\u201d to correct what it calls \u201cinaccurate information presented in the museum.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tRepresentative Melanie Stansbury (Democrat of New Mexico) objected to the order in a statement published by the\u00a0Times<\/em>, saying, \u201cOnce again, the Trump administration is attempting to use executive authority to exercise its political will over our nation\u2019s independent cultural institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tStansbury also objected to the congressional proceedings this week, calling the Republican-led campaign against the Smithsonian a \u201cpolitical witch hunt\u201d while announcing new legislation aimed at asserting congressional authority over the institution and similar independent agencies. She described Friday\u2019s executive order as \u201ca clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history. Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the president, but to the American people, and neither does our national story.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/art-news\/news\/trump-executive-order-smithsonian-signs-inaccurate-information-1234793483\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/gettyimages-2285620655-594×594-1.jpeg?w=594″] President Donald Trump escalated his battle with the Smithsonian\u2019s National Museum of American History Friday, ordering signage outside the institution to flag what an executive order calls \u201cinaccurate information\u201d presented in its exhibits. The extraordinary directive comes amid intensifying Republican scrutiny of the Smithsonian branch, which was the subject of a recent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-2061825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2061825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2061825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2061825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2061825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2061825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}