{"id":654,"date":"2026-07-21T20:12:50","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:12:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=654"},"modified":"2026-07-21T20:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T20:12:50","slug":"republicans-in-congress-probe-history-museum-echoing-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=654","title":{"rendered":"Republicans in Congress probe history museum, echoing Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

As lawmakers clashed with a top Smithsonian official at a Tuesday hearing, they ping-ponged between small details \u2014\u00a0like items sold in the gift shop \u2014 and the loftiest American ideals.<\/p>\n

Read more Rotunda tribute and Cathedral funeral announced for Lindsey Graham<\/a><\/p>\n

Republicans accused Anthea M. Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, of trying to \u201crewrite\u201d the country\u2019s past with a version focused more on pain and complexity than triumph.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The debate mirrored larger political messaging wars as President Donald Trump tries to influence cultural institutions. It comes after a singled out the history museum earlier this month, accusing it of \u201cideological capture.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hartig spent much of her time pushing back against the report and defending the museum\u2019s work.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we continue to fact-check the report, we unwaveringly attest that it does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum. There is always room for improvement, but I also know the beauty and the inspiration and the expertise that lies in our collections,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Congress had largely remained on the sidelines as Trump seeks to purge the Smithsonian of what he described in an executive order last year as \u201cdivisive, race-centered ideology.\u201d After the White House\u2019s Domestic Policy Council released its report, lawmakers are now tuning back in, with two different hearings this week alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This one was held by the House Oversight Delivering on Government Efficiency Subcommittee, once chaired by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene and now led by Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn. Otherwise known as DOGE, the subcommittee has been relatively quiet recently since its formation last year with the mission of rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government. But on Tuesday it played host to heated disputes about who counts as an American and whose stories matter.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Republicans grilled Hartig on whether drag queen RuPaul deserved to be featured among content at the museum, as well as a past exhibit called \u201cGirlhood (It\u2019s complicated).\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYou sexualized the American history museum,\u201d said Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C.<\/p>\n

Others complained that slavery should not receive so much attention in the country\u2019s founding story.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYour museum has minimized or contextualized the founders primarily through slavery and exclusion, while elevating narratives of conquest, systematic injustice and resistance,\u201d Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A second Smithsonian hearing is scheduled for Wednesday at the House Administration Committee.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Smithsonian receives around two-thirds of its support from federal funding, and the rest from private funding and donations. Trump\u2019s executive order last spring directed Vice President JD Vance and Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought to work with Congress to ensure that appropriations for the Smithsonian prohibit any spending on exhibits that \u201cdegrade shared American values\u201d or \u201cdivide Americans based on race.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Competing bills aim for elusive changes to drug discount program<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the president requested a 12 percent cut last cycle to the federal money it receives, Congress kept the funding level mostly steady for fiscal 2026 at just over $1 billion, without any policy riders driven by Trump\u2019s vision.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe museum has strayed, I believe, from the original purpose for which it exists and receives federal taxpayer support. I feel like it\u2019s become infected by a woke ideology,\u201d Burchett said. \u201cIn the museum\u2019s current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Democrats on the subcommittee pushed back, saying it wasn\u2019t Hartig and museum curators who were rewriting history, but Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWelcome to the Republicans\u2019 white pride rally disguised as a congressional hearing. It might be uncomfortable for some people on this committee to hear about the true history of America, and I hate that for them. But facts are facts, and it\u2019s a fact that there is a violent, exclusionary, discriminatory, sexist and racist part of American history,\u201d said Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas.<\/p>\n

Rep. Melanie Stansbury, D-N.M., the subpanel\u2019s ranking member, called it a \u201cpolitical witch hunt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike Gonzalez, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, another one of the hearing\u2019s witnesses, said Smithsonian leadership was no longer up to the job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou need to clean house and relieve all Smithsonian leadership of their duties,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But \u201ccleaning house\u201d wouldn\u2019t fall to Congress or the president. Last year the Smithsonian Board of Regents issued a statement saying that \u201call personnel decisions are made by and subject to the direction of\u201d Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch, \u201cwith oversight by the Board.\u201d Six members of Congress sit on the board.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Gonzalez also argued that two new museums \u2014\u00a0honoring women and Latinos \u2014 would \u201cno doubt become two more incubators of anti-American grievances.\u201d Those two museums have already been authorized by Congress but are waiting on lawmakers to pass a law clearing the way for construction on the National Mall.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Democrats warned of a new era of McCarthyism and said Trump was no museum curator.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen politicians begin deciding what facts are acceptable, scholarship ceases to be scholarship; it becomes propaganda,\u201d Stansbury said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read more Independent voters have been skeptical of Trump\u2019s election claims<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As lawmakers clashed with a top Smithsonian official at a Tuesday hearing, they ping-ponged between small details \u2014\u00a0like items sold in the gift shop \u2014 and the loftiest American ideals. Republicans accused Anthea M. Hartig, director of the National Museum of American History, of trying to \u201crewrite\u201d the country\u2019s past with a version focused more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-654","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress"],"yoast_head":"\nRepublicans in Congress probe history museum, echoing Trump - American Industry Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/americanindustryreview.com\/?p=654\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Republicans in Congress probe history museum, echoing Trump - American Industry Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"As lawmakers clashed with a top Smithsonian official at a Tuesday hearing, they ping-ponged between small details \u2014\u00a0like items sold in the gift shop \u2014 and the loftiest American ideals. 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