President Trump on Friday ordered warning signs and exhibits installed outside the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History to alert the public that the museum does not, in his view, accurately reflect American history.
The unusual directive, made through an executive order, was a considerable escalation of the president’s dispute with the Smithsonian and its history museum, which was the subject of a recent 162-page report. The report accused the museum’s director, Anthea M. Hartig, of “radical activist ideology” and the museum of undermining “faith in American institutions.”
The order went so far as to suggest that the signage inform potential museum visitors of locations where American history is better presented. The administration did not explain where the public would be redirected.
The Smithsonian declined to comment.
Mr. Trump’s order came just days after Ms. Hartig was grilled by Republican legislators in two congressional hearings, where she was accused of teaching “national self-loathing.”
Ms. Hartig, who was a particular target of the White House report, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In the hearings she contested the thrust of the report and insisted her museum was simply representing history in all its complexity.
“When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we don’t mean erasing it,” she said in her testimony. “We mean adding the evidence, the voices, the objects that earlier tellings left out so that more Americans can see themselves reflected in the national story.”
Friday’s executive order also ordered several government officials to “restore trust in the Smithsonian Institution” and to seek its compliance with the White House findings, which asserted that the museum had become a tool of political activism and had not done enough to celebrate the achievements of the nation’s founders on the country’s 250th anniversary year.
The government officials include the interior secretary, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, the administrator of general services, and the assistant to the president for domestic policy, the order says. The Domestic Policy Council published the White House’s report on the Smithsonian.
The inclusion of the budget office is consistent with the White House remarks in other settings that pointed to the fact that the Smithsonian is largely federally funded.
Representative Melanie Stansbury, Democrat of New Mexico, was among those who objected to Mr. Trump’s effort.
“Once again, the Trump administration is attempting to use executive authority to exercise its political will over our nation’s independent cultural institutions,” she said in a statement. “This executive order is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history. Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the president, but the American people, and so does our national story.”
Some historians have also criticized the federal government’s attempts to overhaul the Smithsonian as ideologically motivated.
“I cannot recall a single instance where exhibits have been directly wrestled with by the upper echelons of the federal government,” said Samuel J. Redman, a history professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who has written extensively on the Smithsonian’s history.
The order by the president said the signage “shall notify visitors that the museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the report and direct visitors to locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history,.”
“Because the museum has failed to appropriately honor the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence during this 250th anniversary year of the founding of our country,” the order continues, government agencies “shall install temporary exhibits or signage on N.P.S.-maintained sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public that corrects inaccurate information presented in the museum.”
In Friday’s order, Mr. Trump cited his March 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” which accused the Smithsonian of undermining “the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”
This week’s hearings, which took place on Tuesday and Wednesday, increased the pressure on Ms. Hartig, who was questioned by lawmakers about exhibitions that they said indicated a liberal bias in emphasizing the country’s flaws and failing to adequately celebrate its achievements.
In particular, Ms. Hartig was repeatedly taken to task for two recent shows, one of which — “Entertainment Nation” — included explicit sexual imagery. Another, “Girlhood (It’s complicated),” discussed struggles with gender identity among young women.
Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation who has written critically about the Smithsonian and testified at both hearings, commended Friday’s executive order for enlisting the oversight of administration officials like Russell T. Vought, the White House budget director, and Vince Haley, the director of the White House’s Domestic Policy Council.
“Since I think the only way to correct the Smithsonian is to remove from office its entire leadership,” Mr. Gonzalez said, “I trust these two intellectual heavy hitters will work to do that.”
But Mr. Redman said that many observers have been dismayed by the aggressiveness of the White House efforts to take control of the Smithsonian and its 21 museums.
“Historians are appalled,” Dr. Redman said. “The Smithsonian has been known for trying to present a consensus version of history.”
