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President Donald Trump has called on the Smithsonian Institution to honor the legacy of George Washington with a five-year exhibition at the National Museum of American History (NMAH). He also called for the Smithsonian to erect a 30-foot statue of the nation’s first president rather than the NMAH’s current abstract “Infinity” sculpture.
Trump explained in a post on Truth Social that Washington “is easily America’s Greatest Hero,” adding that the Smithsonian has failed to show proper respect to the nation’s Founding Fathers, including Washington.
“During our Nation’s 250th Anniversary Year, the Museum has failed to give George Washington and our other Founding Fathers the celebration they deserve,” Trump wrote. “Washington’s Heroic Crossing of the Delaware on December 25, 1776—One of the greatest moments and turning points of the Revolution—is not even mentioned in the Museum. His Victory at Trenton, and the stories of the Americans who fought and died for our Independence, deserve far more attention.”
The president added that recent Smithsonian leadership created a “Center for Restorative History” and commissioned a “Decolonization Plan” in an effort to put attention on people perceived as “oppressed” rather than “those who triumphed over great oppression.” He then provided an example of how one exhibit “describes the period of 1492 to 1776, including Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World, and the European settlement of America, as the ‘Great Unsettling’ of the Continent.”
Trump called on the Smithsonian to prioritize telling the unvarnished truth about America rather than left-wing political activism that seeks to denigrate the country and tear down its greatest heroes.
“Instead of focusing on ideological activism, the leaders of America’s taxpayer-funded, National History Museum should be focused on telling America’s story—fairly, accurately, and coherently—and there is no better person to start with than George Washington,” Trump said.
As previously reported, the White House Domestic Policy Council recently released a 160-page report on the left-wing ideological capture of the NMAH. “Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens,” the report found.
The White House Domestic Policy Council found that the museum contained no exhibits on the Founding Fathers or America’s Founding era. Its report also discovered that “museum materials repeatedly suggest that Christianity functioned principally as an instrument of conquest, exclusion, or cultural erasure” and that “exhibits frame the Pilgrims mainly as colonial oppressors.”
In one instance, Anthea Hartig, who serves as the museum’s director, stated that she viewed history as “a prime tool of social justice” and that the museum should “problematize” this year’s semiquincentennial celebration.
The Smithsonian’s left-wing political leanings are especially controversial considering that it receives $1.1 billion per year in federal funding. Senator Mike Lee stated in a post on X that tax dollars should not be going into an institution promoting radical ideologies.
“It’s time to clean house at the Smithsonian Institution,” Lee said. “Hardworking Americans don’t want their taxpayer dollars dedicated to Marxist indoctrination.”
In his statement, Trump explained that his idea for a five-year exhibition is in celebration of the 300th anniversary of Washington’s birth. He would like the exhibition to start now and continue through February 22, 2032. As Trump concluded, the “Country and our Freedoms wouldn’t exist” without Washington and what he accomplished.
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