'If You Can Keep It': The Smithsonian

0:07President Donald Trump and his administration are moving to exert control over exhibits at the Smithsonian Institution. In a letter sent on August 12th, three White House officials told the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, his name's Lonnie G. Bunch III, that the administration would conduct a review at certain Smithsonian museums. The goal? To, quote, celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions. President Trump described the reasons like this. Well, we want the museums to treat our country fairly.

0:44We want the museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or in a racist manner, which is what many of them, not all of them, but many of them are doing. Our museums have an obligation to represent what happened in our country over the years, good and bad, but what happened over the years in an accurate way. That was President Donald Trump speaking from the Oval Office last Thursday. For today's installment of our politics series, If You Can Keep It, where we take a look at the health of our democracy, we'll talk about how the administration is injecting itself into the affairs and the exhibits of the Smithsonian Institution and what that means for our understanding of our shared history now and in the future.

1:26I'm Todd Zwilich, in for Jen White, and you're listening to the 1A Podcast. Back with more in just a moment.

1:37Let's get right into the discussion now with our guest. Joining me is Jennifer Schuessler, reporter for The New York Times, who covers history and ideas. Jenny, welcome to 1A. Hi. Also with us is Khalil Gibran Muhammad, professor of African-American studies and public affairs at Princeton University. Professor, welcome to the program. Oh, thank you for having me. All right, Jenny, Khalil, I'm glad you're both here. Jenny, let's start with the big picture. Walk us through the letter the administration sent to the secretary of the Smithsonian and what the goal is here. Well, I it was a pretty sweeping letter that sort of came suddenly.

2:16And yet it's really just the latest sort of salvo in President Trump's campaign to exert more control at the music at the Smithsonian. So as some background, back in late March, he issued an executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. And it covered a number of things. But the sort of big headline there was that he was accusing Smithsonian of promoting sort of derogatory views of America at its museums. And it ordered J.D. Vance, who is a member of the Smithsonian's governing board, to use his influence to reshape the institution. So what happened last week was that three officials from the White House, three political appointees, sent a quite sweeping letter to Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian, announcing a very broad review of the entire Smithsonian, starting with eight museums.

3:12And basically, they really asked for everything. within 30 days the Smithsonian has to release or provide all plans and drafts and outlines for all of its exhibits relating to the 250th anniversary of American independence next summer details of all of its current exhibition content details of all traveling and upcoming exhibitions for the next three years audience surveys job descriptions organizational charts, basically educational materials, basically everything. So Jenny, that's the text of the letter. What's the subtext? What's the subtext in your educated reading here? Well, the subtext here is that the White House is turning up the pressure on the Smithsonian, which sees itself as independent and has operated independently of the executive to conform to President Trump's ideas of how American history should be discussed, taught, described, debated.

4:15Khalil Gibran Muhammad, you were previously director of a research center and an archive, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem in New York. What do you hear when you hear that administration officials want to enter these exhibits at the Smithsonian and, quote, remove partisan narratives? What does that say to you? Well, it is a consistent pattern for the Trump administration to control all aspects of how American history is taught, read, discussed diplomatically across the world. There have been changes in how U.S. history is communicated to people in foreign embassies, etc.

4:59So the broad strokes here are that the Trump administration want to ensure that their authoritarian grasp for power in the United States is less likely to be challenged by everyday citizens who can connect the dots between an American past where forms of government control over populations, most particularly the African-American population that experienced what we call Jim Crow and formal disenfranchisement. And some scholars would compare to a form of American homegrown fascism. So these are consistent patterns where the Trump administration wants American history to underwrite or to support a form of, quote, patriotic education that will miseducate the population to believe that his approach to governance is the only way forward for this country.

5:56Jenny, what reactions have you heard from historians, curators about the review that we're talking about? I think mostly quite negative and pretty much in line with what we just heard from Professor Mohammed, the Organization of American Historians, very quickly issued a statement criticizing this. The American Historical Association, which is the largest organization of professional historians in the country, itself issued a statement that was joined by 25 other groups. And here, I think there are two things going on. I think there's tremendous wariness of the substance of what President Trump and his administration wants, but also people see a very broad attack on authority and expertise.

6:41The argument is that regardless of what changes the Trump administration wants here, it is simply not their place or that of any other president or administration to demand changes at a museum, which is run by professional curators, archivists, leaders, and reflects the sort of cumulative judgment, you know, arrived at through a lot of debate and discussion over decades of professionals who are trained. Let's take a moment for this message that we got from one of you. People who want to own public memory quite literally want to own it. This is about ownership. This is about owning what is going to be the official story, not just of our nation, but the official story that you have to accept to participate in our nation state.

7:27So when you hear someone like Secretary Hegseth say, you know, this erodes legacy, the question is whose legacy? This has always been the debate when it comes to history. There is not a history. There's not a singular history. There are different histories. And this is a battle about whose history is going to be dominant, is going to be central. Well, the Smithsonian Review is the latest in a series of attempts to change references to history. In February, 1A covered Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth's decision to rename Fort Liberty Base in North Carolina, giving it back its previous name, Fort Bragg, a name that originally honored a Confederate general.

8:10Tressie McMillan-Cottom spoke to us at the time. She's a sociologist and a professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She's also an opinion columnist for the New York Times. With the recent firing of the head of the Labor Statistics Board, as well as Trump appointing himself as the head of the Kennedy Center, and now the ordering of a review of a quote-unquote independent museum since the 1840s, I think it's the far more critical question to ask ourselves, why aren't stopgaps in place to keep these institutions and reporting boards actually independent from this sort of takeover?

8:50And why aren't we more concerned about this administration's actions and what tangible repercussions are there going to be? Professor Khalil Gibran Muhammad of Princeton, what's your reaction to what you just heard there? Well, Tressie is correct in that historians debate the facts of the past. And that is to say that museums like classrooms, like scholarship, are defined by the weight that historians use to measure movements in history, the impact of political culture, everything from Abraham Lincoln's decision to deploy habeas corpus in the time of the Civil War. History is not static in this sense.

9:43So what a politician might perceive to be revisionist, meaning making things up in the way that they are criticizing what they call woke or divisive or race-based teaching, are really reflections of the changes in how the historical profession understands the role of previously oppressed and excluded populations. For example, indigenous populations, there's more Native American history taught today. It's not made up. It is the work of historians and archives to discover facts that were often erased or ignored or simply destroyed. And what Trump is trying to do is trying to push us back to a time, say, in the 1950s and before when American history, like one of your callers described, was genuinely whitewashed.

10:39It was about great white men as movers and shakers of history. So today we have many narratives. We have a much more diverse narrative about the American past. But for professionals at the Smithsonian and across our universities and in our classrooms, they rely on facts as the basis of those interpretations. Well, we're hearing from lots and lots of you about this story. David in Minnesota emails to say, Trump's call to align the Smithsonian with his so-called American values is a blatant Soviet-style effort to impose propaganda instead of history on the institution. It's a standard dictator playbook tactic.

11:24And we got this from Jay in Virginia who says, Trump's exerting control over Smithsonian exhibits in addition to controlling the Kennedy Center and attempting to control universities is just another authoritarian move, this time in the cultural area. This is what authoritarians and tyrants do, as in 1984. And we got this from Barbara, who says the Smithsonian is the jewel in the crown in Washington, D.C. So many museums across the country have had to raise their admission fees to meet budgetary needs. The Smithsonian museums are still free. The professional staff and curators should be allowed to continue their best work.

12:00Hands off, says Barbara. Well, we appreciate those messages, so many of you, with concerns about the proposed review. Khalil, where else have we seen politicians interfere in museums or the preservation or the transmission of history? Have we seen similarities to what President Trump and his administration are doing in other countries or in other times? We have, yes. It's a great question. So not too long ago, within the past 10 years, an organization called Memorial, founded in Russia by a man named Yuri Dmitriev, was an organization dedicated to learning and educating the public about Stalin's crimes and the many political dissidents who were imprisoned unjustly and many who were killed in the 1930s.

12:53This organization was founded to promote human rights in Russia today. For that work, Vladimir Putin and the Russian Ministry of Justice targeted the founder, Yuri Dmitriev. He was charged with child pornography for taking photos of his own child. Later, those charges were dismissed, but not after him spending as much as 15 years in prison. And several years after that, by December of 2021, the Russian government shut Memorial down. And the basic problem here was not that the organization was calling attention to Vladimir Putin's administration, but by calling attention to Stalin's crimes against humanity made it possible for people to connect the dots between that past and Putin's own authoritarian targeting of political dissidents.

13:50Let's go to our voicemail box. So many of you, as I said, reaching out to us. Here's Marlene. The problem with Trump is this, I believe. He's uneducated. He doesn't understand the importance of history, the good, bad, and the ugly. He wants to paint a picture that's not true and that's not honest to the integrity of the United States of America. He has his hands in everything and everything becomes chaotic once he gets involved. Jennifer Schuessler, what have we seen from Donald Trump personally that gives us a sense of how he views the role of American history and maybe his role in that? Well, I've been following this quite closely since his first term, and Professor Mohammed alluded to this, but some may remember that in the summer of 2020, he gave a very fiery speech on the 4th of July, or maybe it was the night before the 4th of July, denouncing people who were attacking statues, wanted to tear down heroes.

14:51He announced a plan for a National Garden of American Heroes, which would be a patriotic sculpture garden at a site to be determined featuring 250 great American heroes. And then also that year, a few months later, he announced the creation of a 1776 commission, which would move to restore what he calls patriotic education in America's schools. That commission, interestingly enough, released its report the day before President Trump left office, but it has remained influential, certainly on the right. And then we see that President Trump himself has remained deeply interested in promoting that kind of patriotic history.

15:32We got this from Scott in Michigan, who says the government has no business taking over and attempting to dictate history, culture or any aspect of society where the public has a say in what goes on. They work for us, not the other way around. And we got this from James, who says, I think Trump makes a valid argument here. It's pretty well known that there is at least a moderate left bias among individuals who've made it through higher education and the types of people who run shows at museums. They're typically going to be in that group. What sort of bias does creep in largely in terms of what's being selected to be shown?

16:06Thanks for making that point, James. Well, we're going to take a quick break, but still to come, what should private organizations that preserve history do right now? And the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence is next year. What does this Smithsonian story mean for those celebrations?

16:28Let's get back to the conversation now with messages from a lot of you. Brian says, I've been going to the Smithsonian museums for over 50 years. I've seen a lot of exhibits. All were fair and reasoned. Patty in South Carolina says, I guess Donald Trump thinks the Smithsonian museums are racist as they provide the real history on how various ethnicities have been mistreated. For example, slavery and massacres of Native Americans. And we got this from Ethelin who says, as a teacher in DC for many years, I visited various Smithsonian museums every weekend, took my students on tours of its museums at various times.

17:05The person who wants to be a dictator is using his power to attempt to make Americans as ignorant as he is. Ethelyn, thank you for that message. Let's hear now from another voice about what private organizations that deal with recording and teaching history can do right now. We're talking about the Smithsonian Institution and eight of its museums under review by the president and the White House. That's a public institution funded mostly by Congress, overseen by Congress. But what about the private sector? Joining us now from Washington, D.C., is Brent Leggs. He's an executive director of the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund.

17:43He's also senior vice president at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. They're a nonprofit organization. Brent, thanks for being on 1A. Hey, Todd. Thanks for having me. What role does your organization, the African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund, play in preserving U.S. history? As someone who spent my career preserving American history, I see the stakes very clearly, especially in this moment. When political interference begins to reach into our cultural institutions, it threatens not just exhibitions and interpretation, but our collective memory. That's why the National Trust for Historic Preservation founded the African American Culture Heritage Action Fund.

18:26Our role is to ensure independent, community-driven preservation of historic places that tell the full American story by preserving sites of Black American achievement, activism, and resilience that's fundamental to understanding our national identity. Would you give us a few examples of sites around the country that the fund has helped preserve, especially ones that might not have been preserved without your help? Yeah. So a couple examples, Todd. We're actively working with communities to protect historic schools connected to a multiracial partnership between educator Booker T. Washington, who founded Tuskegee University, and businessman Julius Rosenwald, who together helped to construct over 5 ,000 school buildings in 15 southern states.

19:18And there are only about 500 school buildings still standing to tell a powerful story about the role of philanthropy in solving social problems and the vision of everyday citizens to strengthen public education for all children. Another example of our active work is, which is quite unprecedented. It is our Preserving Black Churches project, where we're working from Alaska to Florida to help communities preserve historically black churches as viable centers of faith, culture, and community, while also helping them to tell their stories and preserve their assets. Our work is expansive across the country, and it's thanks to the dogged commitment and perseverance of preservation organizations working at a national, statewide, and local levels to protect American history.

20:11So, Brent, you're looking on from the private sector here, still with two feet firmly planted in history and the transmission of history. What do you see when you see the letter and the review that Jennifer Schuessler wrote about and described for us and the Trump administration's move to at least partially rewrite the history that the Smithsonian is transmitting? I would respond to that question, Ty, by saying I think a lot of Americans misunderstand the role of preservation in society and the benefits that we bring to communities across the country. Preservation supports a healthier climate and reduces our carbon footprint.

20:56Preservation is economic development and community revitalization. Preservation is a new kind of responsibility to the next generation so that when we are preserving our full, accurate American story, we can ensure the preservation of their inheritance. Preservation is complex and multifaceted, and it is an ethical responsibility by both public and private partners to ensure that our national narrative is understood and available to the public. Brent, before I let you go, this is our series, If You Can Keep It. We tie the headlines every week, what's going on in the national conversation to the important story of the health of our democracy.

21:46What's that connection for you? I'm going to leave you with two questions, you and the audience. What is a nation without its history? And who has the responsibility to preserve that history? If we do not partner in this moment to fill the void federal disinvestment has created, we might just find out. That's Brent Leggs, Executive Director of the African American Cultural Heritage Fund. He's also Senior Vice President at the National Trust for Historic Preservation. That's a private nonprofit organization. Brent, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Well, we're going to get back to our panel, Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times.

22:30But boy, so many of you are reaching out to be part of this conversation. Bruce in Atlanta says, I am a 76-year-old white male who was born, raised, and lived his entire life in Georgia. My life is a product of the civil rights movement. I witness firsthand the sin of our racist society in restrooms and water fountains restricted by race. This is our history, as ugly as it is. And it was only one aspect of our racism. Trump is way out of line. literally trying to whitewash this. He is a hypocrite and wants the rest of the country to buy into his hypocrisy. I will not. I know history. I lived it.

23:11Bruce, thanks for that message. We got this from Brent, from Emily, rather, in New York. He says, my condolences to right-wingers who are frustrated about it. But as Jon Stewart once said, reality has a liberal bias. Or to quote somebody they might prefer, Ben Shapiro famously said, facts don't care about your feelings. Museum curators should not be required to present wrong information in the name of bipartisanship. Thank you both for those messages. We have lots more to get to because so many of you are reaching out to us. Boy, 1A listeners really care about this topic. I can tell you that. Let's get back to the panel now.

23:46Khalil Gibran Muhammad of Princeton, Jennifer Schuessler of the New York Times. Jenny, we mentioned it before. The 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States is in July 2026. 2026. Donald Trump has talked a lot about being heavily involved in that. What's the connection between that national anniversary and this planned review, this planned interference in the Smithsonian that we've been talking about today? Well, President Trump has been quite interested in the 250th for a long time. He has referred to it going back to his first term. It's something that otherwise has kind of been flying below the radar for many people.

24:24But it's less than 10 months away, next summer, July 4th. So the Smithsonian was set to have played an important role in the 250th in the Capitol with exhibitions at all of its museums. It has yet to announce very many of them, which I find quite striking. It would appear that they are kind of nervous about going out there with anything which might then be attacked politically, whether by the president or by conservatives or by anyone else. But it's interesting to me that the first item listed in the Trump administration letter last week was demanding all exhibition plans, draft concepts, event outlines related to America 250.

25:08So they really want to keep an eye on and influence and affect whatever the Smithsonian puts out there at this big moment of national celebration, commemoration. Khalil, if the administration changes exhibits at museums, for example, the National Museum of American History and Culture, just down the street from the White House, incidentally, or if federally employed curators feel they need to consider politics before they finish a historical exhibit that the public will see, what does that mean for the public's understanding of history? I don't know. Five floors of the African American Museum, according to my memory.

25:47Take us through a one-minute tour of that museum and what it would mean if curators there had to switch it up on orders of the White House. Well, first, it'd be impossible. I mean, let's be really crystal clear. There is no way to empty that wonderful, rich, encyclopedic museum of 400 years of history in a way that would meet the test of what Donald Trump and the administration are insisting. You simply cannot tell a patriotic story without understanding that there was slavery in the United States nearly 250 years, longer than there has been freedom in this country. That history of slavery was followed by 100 years of formal segregation, a segregation history that also inspired Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

26:45And although conservatives prior to Donald Trump have often used that 350 years up until 1965 as a kind of story of America's past that has now heroically been overcome by great Americans, which of course denies that most white Americans were not in favor of the civil rights movement. Most legislators around the country fought against that change. And as quickly as the late 1960s and early 1970s, we saw a rollback in some of the freedoms that black people had gained. That is what the museum tells. And you'd simply have to close the museum for all intents and purposes. There's just, it would be impossible to do.

27:29Close it. Yeah, you'd have to close it. I don't, it just, there's no way, there's just no way to do it. I'm not exaggerating. So I don't know how they actually plan to pull this off. I don't think they can. Given the imperatives of the job, what a curator does, what a museum executive does in their role in history, you're told by a politician or given a review of your exhibits and told what's in, what's out. Do you expect resignations? Absolutely. But let's be really clear here. I mean, I just need to say this as explicitly as possible. Donald Trump and the Republican Party imagine themselves as the caretakers of freedom.

28:16This is a party for all of its history since the 1860s that has celebrated a kind of American freedom where individuals have rights, where government is limited. Remember, Ronald Reagan, who up until Donald Trump had been a kind of archetype of the great American president, famously said that government was the problem and we should shrink it as much as possible. We have just the opposite happening now. We have a government under Donald Trump that wants to make every single decision about what is factual, what is truth, what is history, what is art, what is culture, who can be the standard bearer of the Democratic Party in a Democratic primary race in New York City.

29:07I mean, there is no limit to the control of this organization. They are controlling law firms. They are controlling higher education curriculum. This is what dictatorship looks like. It is, by any standard, anti-American, by the standards of the very Republican Party that has prided itself on carrying the banner of freedom for all of its history. We got this message from Ian, who emails to say, I don't agree with others' assessment of Trump as ignorant or uneducated. I feel his move to whitewash history is an aware move that if you steer the narrative of history of the nation, then you can control its future.