Donald Trump has targeted America’s best-known museums and charged vice president JD Vance with removing “improper ideology” from the institutions.
The president has accused the Smithsonian Institution of promoting “corrosive ideology” as well as “divisive” and “race-centred” ideas.
He signed an executive order on Thursday tasking Mr Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, with removing “improper ideology” from all areas of the institution, which is made up of 21 museums and the National Zoo.
The institution is partly funded by the US government.
It marks Mr Trump’s latest attack on US cultural institutions he believes are too liberal.
Mr Trump recently had himself installed as chairman of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and replaced board members with political loyalists.
In his executive order, the president said the Smithsonian used to be seen as “a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement”.
But in recent years, it said, it has “come under the influence of a divisive, race-centred ideology”.
He accused it of advancing narratives that portray American and Western values as “inherently harmful and oppressive”.
Mr Trump claimed there has been a “concerted and widespread” effort over the past decade to rewrite American history by replacing “objective facts” with a “distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth,” adding that it casts the “founding principles” of the United States in a “negative light”.
Some have seen this as a nod towards the return of statues and monuments of Confederate figures, many of which were taken down after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis in 2020 and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.
‘Authoritarianism coming for the arts’
The Smithsonian describes itself on its website as “the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums, 14 education and research centres”.
Established in 1846 by the US Congress, it is charged with telling the country’s story and is sometimes referred to as “America’s attic”. It also manages the National Zoo in Washington.
It receives 62% of its funding from the federal government, The Washington Post said.
Sky News has approached the Smithsonian Institution for comment.
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The order also calls for improvements to Independence Hall in Philadelphia by 4 July 2026, in time for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Mr Trump’s administration has targeted, among others, Columbia University in New York, threatening to withdraw $400m (£3.1m) unless it acted to stop the “persistent harassment of Jewish students”.
The college, whose students were at the forefront of protests against US policy in Gaza, agreed to make sweeping changes, Sky’s US partner NBC News said.
