Week in review: Migrant 'gravy train' halted; parental rights probes launched; MS-13 leader captured

By Ryan Foley, Christian Post Reporter Saturday, March 29, 2025

4. Removing ‘corrosive’ ideology from Smithsonian, national monuments

In an executive order Thursday, Trump outlined steps he is taking for "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History."

"Over the past decade, Americans have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation's history, replacing objective facts with a distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth," the order states. "The prior administration advanced this corrosive ideology."

The order included examples of what Trump described as the Smithsonian Institution's embrace of a "divisive, race-centered ideology," highlighting an exhibit at the Smithsonian American Art Museum asserting that "[s]ocieties including the United States have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement" while characterizing sculpture as "a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism."

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Trump mentioned an exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture, calling "hard work," "individualism," and the "nuclear family" part of "White culture."

The order directs Vice President J.D. Vance to work with other administration officials to "remove improper ideology" from the Smithsonian Institution and the National Zoo and ensure that appropriations to the Smithsonian Institution "prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race, or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with Federal law and policy."

Another provision in the order directs Vance and the Office of Management and Budget to ensure that the forthcoming American Women's History Museum does not recognize trans-identified males as women "in any respect."

Trump instructed the interior secretary to confirm that all properties under his agency's jurisdiction do not contain materials that "perpetuate a false reconstruction of American history, inappropriately minimize the value of certain historical events or figures, or include any other improper partisan ideology."