Culture A Huge Escalation in Trump’s Smithsonian Meddling A White House report details what the administration wants to change in museums—and suggests that a crackdown could be coming. By Kelsey Ables The area outside the National Museum of American History's display of the Star-Spangled Banner Heather Diehl / Getty July 6, 2026, 7:18 PM ET Share Save The buff George Washington statue in the National Museum of American History speaks for itself. Taking in the washboard abs and determined expression of the 1840 work by Horatio Greenough, a visitor would be hard-pressed to see anything but a Founding Father rendered as a Greek god. Yet in a searing 162-page report on the Smithsonian museum released on July 4, the Trump administration takes issue with the lack of patriotism in even this exhibit. The statue contains other symbols “of a heroic nation,” including a carving of Hercules, accompanying wall text says, noting that the scene “symbolizes the perceived courage of the American people.” To the White House, the text “refuses to affirm the exceptional courage of the American people” and captures the museum’s “thinly veiled anti-Americanism.”