A Domestic Policy Council report says the National Museum of American History has shifted away from its founding mission and toward political activism under current leadership.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

The Trump administration has released a Domestic Policy Council report accusing the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History of moving away from its original mission and adopting an ideological framework that the White House says turns the museum into a vehicle for political activism.

The report, titled “Saving America’s Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage,” was quietly released as President Donald Trump marked the 250th anniversary of American independence in Washington, D.C., according to Just the News.

The review followed Trump’s March 27, 2025, executive order directing federal officials to address what the administration described as “revisionist” and ideological content in federally funded museums, historical sites and public history materials.

Congress authorized the museum in 1955 to present the national story of the United States and to “place before” visitors “a stimulating permanent exposition that commemorates our heritage of freedom and highlights the basic elements of our way of life.”

The Domestic Policy Council said the institution’s current leadership has departed from that purpose.

“Our central finding is not that the Museum has simply added overlooked stories, corrected perceived errors, or broadened its historical scope,” the council wrote. “Rather, it is that 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 focuses heavily on museum director Anthea Hartig, who was appointed by the Smithsonian secretary in 2018. The council argues that under Hartig’s leadership, the museum has been reshaped around a “social justice” agenda rather than its original charge to present and preserve American history.

The report cites Hartig’s public comments following the George Floyd and Black Lives Matter protests in 2020. At the time, Hartig said, “We work to reframe the traditional, celebratory narrative of U.S. history for visitors … .”

The following year, during remarks to the University of California Riverside, Hartig said the museum profession had “to figure out” how “we’re going to” “problematize” the “250th Anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 2026.” She also said “loving America is very complicated,” according to the report.

“These are not the words of an objective historian, but rather those of an activist advancing an ideological agenda contradictory to the Museum’s founding purpose of fostering patriotism,” the Domestic Policy Council wrote.

The full Smithsonian report was posted publicly.

Smithsonian Report Saving Americas Story 2 by yourNEWS Media

The National Museum of American History did not respond to a request for comment from Just the News.

“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” Smithsonian spokeswoman Julissa Marenco told The New York Times.

The Domestic Policy Council also scrutinized the museum’s mission statement, saying it changed significantly after Hartig took over. Shortly after her appointment, Hartig said she wanted the museum to become “the most accessible, inclusive, relevant, and sustainable public history museum in the nation.” She then asked staff to create a new mission statement.

The previous mission statement said: “Through incomparable collections, rigorous research, and dynamic public outreach, we explore the infinite richness and complexity of American history. We help people understand the past in order to make sense of the present and shape a more humane future.”

Under Hartig, the mission statement became: “Empowering people to create a more just and compassionate future by exploring, preserving, and sharing the complexity of our past.”

The council said the change removed references to the “infinite richness” of American history and no longer explicitly refers to “American history,” replacing it with “our past.”

“‘American history’ was replaced by ‘our past,’ the new objective became empowerment for the sake of social and political activism, not learning for the sake of understanding,” the report said.

The council also cited a public comment from Hartig in which she said the mission change was intended to help “get out of the ‘America First’ mentality” at the museum dedicated to American history.

One of the report’s central criticisms is that the museum does not have a major exhibit devoted to the American founding era, the Founding Fathers, the Continental Congress or major events of the American Revolution.

The council said the museum’s references to the founders often emphasize personal flaws and involvement in slavery while minimizing their role in advancing ideas that later contributed to the end of slavery in the United States.

Visitors “will find no major exhibit dedicated to America’s founding era, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, other founding fathers, the Continental Congress, the pilgrims, the Puritans or major moments of the American Revolution,” the report said.

The Domestic Policy Council also criticized the museum’s programming around Independence Day and the country’s semiquincentennial. The report said the museum did not schedule or hold special events to celebrate Independence Day in 2025 or to mark the 250th anniversary of the United States in 2026.

A museum events calendar for July 2025 listed a “Wish For U.S. Wall” running from June 19 to July 3, where visitors could “share their wish for the nation.” The report said no Independence Day events were scheduled on July 4 to celebrate the holiday.

The council said that in 2026, while Washington marked the nation’s historic semiquincentennial, the museum did not offer “July 4th-only programming for Independence Day.”

The report contrasted that with what it described as a broad slate of Pride Month programming in 2025, including performances by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., book signings and special objects from museum storage, Just the News reported.

The Domestic Policy Council also faulted the museum for programming tied to anti-racism efforts after the 2020 riots and for featuring illegal-alien activism. The report said some evidence of those programs and exhibits has since been removed from the museum’s website.

According to the report, “undocumented organizing” materials appeared across multiple exhibits, including a monarch butterfly labeled “DACA wings” and bearing the phrases “#Here to Fight” and “Undocumented & UNAFRAID.” The object was shown near panels labeled “Raising Citizens,” “Claiming Citizenship,” and “Making Citizens.”

The museum also participated in the Smithsonian’s “Our Shared Future: Reckoning with Our Racial Past” initiative in 2021. Deborah Lynn Mack, the initiative’s director, described the effort as encouraging museums to take an “activist stance” and helping staff “engage in this work in ways that actually reinforces their activism, their sense of equity, their sense of social justice … .”

The council concluded that the museum has “become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

“Rather than part of a national trust for the diffusion of knowledge, dedicated to explaining the ‘infinite richness and complexity of American history,’the National Museum of American History has become an instrument – a ‘prime tool,’ as Director Hartig has put it – for a radical, activist cohort dedicated to reframing the American story to serve its ideological ends,” the panel wrote.