House Republicans Put American History Museum On Blast

The National Museum of American History’s director weathered attacks Wednesday from Republicans on the House Administration Committee in the wake of a White House report that accused the institution’s leadership of adopting “extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

“What you are doing, the examples that you see, time and time again, they are absolute political activism,” Rep. Greg Murphy (R-N.C.) told the museum’s director, Anthea Hartig. “You’re not trying to tell a balanced story of America. You’re trying to tell it from a leftist, progressive viewpoint. Period.“

The report from the White House Domestic Policy Council, released on Independence Day, accused museum leadership of extreme political activism and erasure of American history, alleging that it “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.”

It comes as President Donald Trump has angled for a major overhaul of the Smithsonian and its many museums since his return to the White House.

Committee Republicans seized on the report's findings, blasting Hartig and urging the museum to change its approach to historical education. They also grilled the historian, who was appointed to head the museum in 2018, over her political donations and past statements about the museum's mission, as well as a claim she once made that loving America “is complicated.”

“You have said loving America is complicated. Sadly, it’s not just rhetoric,” said Rep. Bryan Steil (R-Wis.), chair of the Administration Committee. “You’ve built that into the museum’s exhibits. You built it into the website to convey an ideological narrative that denigrates our founders, diminishes our achievements and seeks to divide American people.”

Hartig appeared to preempt the line of questioning in her opening statement when she invited lawmakers to visit the museum.

“Walk the building with me, stand in front of the Star-Spangled Banner in awe,” she said. “I believe what you shall find is not an institution that has forgotten its country but one that loves it enough to tell the full sweep of our history. The triumphs and the struggles.”

Hartig told the lawmakers that her love of America was “unconditional.” But she said that, “as a historian, I can tell you that over time, it has been very complicated for many people.” The museum’s goal, she said, is merely “to educate all Americans and everyone who comes through our door.”

Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) told Hartig that she was “bothered by the fact that you don’t recognize that there’s a problem.”

“You think that the exhibits that you’re putting forward in the museum are wholly acceptable, even though you’re being questioned about many of them,” Bice added.

Democrats on the committee defended the museum’s curriculum, panning Trump’s attempts to reshape cultural institutions throughout the nation’s capital, including the Smithsonian.

“We’re here for one single reason,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the committee’s ranking member. “Because the president of the United States believes he is entitled to determine what is true about America’s past. He is not.”

The president signed an executive order soon after taking office last year that triggered a sweeping content review of the Smithsonian's programming and sought to eliminate “improper ideology” from the museums.

He also fired the chief of the National Archives and forced the resignation of National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet.

“The president has spent his term reaching into the institutions that keep our national memory, trying to bend them to his will,” Morelle said.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.