A senior Heritage Foundation fellow and former federal prosecutor is calling for the director of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History to be fired, arguing the institution's exhibits have become a vehicle for left-wing ideology rather than honest education.
Cully Stimson, a senior legal fellow at the Heritage Foundation and former assistant U.S. attorney for Washington, D.C., told Fox News Digital that the museum's current leadership has turned taxpayer-funded exhibits into an "oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative" that amounts to national self-hatred. He wants Director Anthea Hartig gone, by resignation or by termination, and the exhibits themselves gutted and rebuilt.
His broadside follows a summer of escalating conflict between the Trump administration and the Smithsonian Institution over how America's history is presented in its most prominent museums. A White House report released on the Fourth of July, a pair of congressional hearings, and an executive order directing warning signs outside the museum have all put Hartig and her institution under sustained pressure heading into the nation's 250th birthday.
The confrontation traces back to a White House Domestic Policy Council report titled "Saving America's Story," published July 4, 2026. The report accused the National Museum of American History of abandoning its educational mission in favor of what it called "extreme political activism." The White House council concluded that museum leadership had adopted an "intersectional critical theory" framework and could no longer be trusted to tell America's story honestly.
The report did not hold back.
"Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that 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."
That language came directly from the Domestic Policy Council's findings. The report also stated that "NMAH fails in the basic task of illuminating our heritage."
Separately, the White House sent a letter to Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III ordering a wide-ranging review of all public-facing content, including social media, exhibition text, and educational materials, across eight major Smithsonian museums. The museums were given 30 days to submit exhibit materials and 120 days to take corrective action, replacing what the administration called "divisive or ideologically driven language." AP News reported the review was designed to align content with the president's vision of American "exceptionalism."
The eight museums under initial review include the National Museum of American History, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Museum of the American Indian, the National Air and Space Museum, and four others. The scope alone signals how broadly the administration views the problem.
Because the Smithsonian operates independently of the executive branch, its leadership cannot be directly hired or fired by the president, the administration took a different route. President Trump signed an executive order directing the National Park Service to install signage on the federal sidewalk outside the museum. The New York Post reported that signs above each entrance would carry a pointed message directing visitors to the White House report.
The Washington Examiner reported the signage would read: "Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don't want you to love your country."
Trump also directed the creation of a temporary exhibit intended to correct what the administration considers inaccurate historical information at the museum. The Smithsonian receives roughly two-thirds of its approximately $1 billion annual budget through federal appropriations, a fact that gives Congress and the administration significant financial leverage even without direct control over exhibits or personnel.
White House official Lindsey Halligan framed the dispute in fiscal terms: "American taxpayers should not be funding institutions that undermine our country or promote one-sided, divisive political narratives."
The White House report triggered a pair of congressional hearings that put Hartig directly in the spotlight. On July 21, 2026, she appeared before an Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee on Capitol Hill. Lawmakers accused museum leaders of allowing political activism to seep into exhibits meant to educate the public about American history.
Stimson, who watched the hearings closely, was unsparing in his assessment of Hartig's performance. He described her demeanor as "smug and self-righteous" and took particular issue with what he characterized as her dismissive attitude toward congressional oversight.
"Her little writing the question down and her smugness was really evincing of what she really thinks of the American people and congressional oversight."
Hartig, who has led the museum since 2019, maintained that the institution is nonpartisan and "does not take sides in America's political debates." In a separate statement responding to the White House report, she pushed back directly: "As 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."
Democrats at the hearings accused Republicans of trying to "whitewash" history. But Stimson rejected that framing outright.
"Celebrating doesn't mean whitewashing history. Every civilization throughout mankind has had slavery. That doesn't make it right, it makes it reality."
Fox News Digital reached out to the Smithsonian for comment before publishing Stimson's interview. The institution did not respond.
Stimson's critique goes beyond Hartig's management style. He argues the museum's entire curatorial approach has been captured by a left-wing framework that presents American history as a story of oppression rather than a complex national inheritance worth celebrating.
"Instead of looking at American history chronologically with all the triumphs and tragedies, including slavery, and then the things that our country did to eradicate the vestiges of slavery, and then passing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments and the Civil Rights Acts and getting rid of various other laws that were discriminatory in practice or in spirit. They take a very pro-reparations, 'we're a bad country,' oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative."
He pointed to specific absences. In his view, the museum should dedicate an entire section to the Founding Fathers, the Constitutional Convention of 1787, the Reconstruction Amendments, and the Civil War. Instead, he said, the exhibits skip over those milestones in favor of a grievance-driven narrative.
"There should be an entire section dedicated toward the Founding Fathers and the Constitutional Convention of 1787 and the Reconstruction Amendments and all the things that happened, the Civil War, but no."
Stimson framed the museum's direction as part of a larger ideological project, one that extends well beyond Washington.
"I think this is part of a broader effort by radicals on the left to redefine the history of the United States and reframe it in an oppressor-versus-oppressed narrative."
He drew a direct line from the museum's approach to what he described as ideological drift in public education at every level, from universities down to elementary schools. That drift, he argued, has fueled the growth of alternatives.
"You see this in higher ed, you see this unfortunately in high school and even below in lower schools, and unfortunately at our premier national museums, including the American History Museum."
"That's why you saw more and more homeschoolers, more and more people in the school choice movement just explode across the country."
His bottom line was blunt. The museum, as currently constituted, is not a place that celebrates America. It is a place that punishes Americans for their own history.
"We should not have a museum dedicated to flagellation and self-loathing. That is not how you celebrate your country."
The timing of this fight is not incidental. Hundreds of thousands of people traveled to Washington in July 2026 to celebrate the nation's 250th anniversary, a milestone that, by its nature, invites a reckoning with how the country tells its own story. The fact that the nation's premier history museum became the center of a political firestorm during that celebration underscores how deep the disagreement runs.
Stimson said the hearings served a useful purpose, even if they did not produce immediate legislative action. "Sunlight's a good disinfectant," he said. But he made clear that transparency alone is not enough. He wants personnel changes and a wholesale reconstruction of the museum's exhibits.
"If the head of the Smithsonian had any shame whatsoever, she would have resigned in disgrace already and she doesn't have any shame because she's perfectly happy with what she's done. She's just the pointy end of the radical spear that's out there trying to force this thing down the throats of Americans."
Hartig has shown no sign of stepping down. The Breitbart report noted that she has stated she sees history as a "prime tool of social justice", a characterization that, if accurate, would seem to undercut her own claim that the museum takes no political sides.
Stimson also stressed the role of parents. He called them "the first educators of their children" and said it falls to families to present American history honestly when institutions will not.
As for the exhibits themselves, Stimson offered a two-word verdict and a prescription.
"That's all it is. It's bile. It needs to be ripped out, root and branch, and redone."
The Smithsonian collects roughly $1 billion a year, with about two-thirds of that coming from federal taxpayers. If the institution's leaders will not tell America's story honestly, the people who fund it have every right to demand a change in who holds the pen.
