Trump Administration Moves Forward With Warning Signs Outside Smithsonian

The Trump administration has advanced plans to install signs outside the Smithsonian Institution’s museums, prioritizing the National Museum of American History (NMAH), warning visitors that they will encounter what the administration described as ideologically driven displays that cast the US in an unfavorable light.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum told US senators Lisa Murkowski and Jeff Merkley in a September 3 letter that a “commitment to transparency” and “academic honesty” has forced the administration to erect signs outside the museum, warning visitors that “the leadership of the Smithsonian and NMAH have altered the museum’s role from accurately and coherently telling American’s story to using the museum as a tool to advance personal, radical ideologies,” according to NPR. (ARTnews has not reviewed a copy of the letter.)

The missive was earlier reported by the Atlantic, which quotes it as saying, “The informational signage therefore will provide visitors with important context about the exhibits they are about to encounter and the personal viewpoints that the curators of the exhibits are seeking to advance.” The article says that a person familiar with the plans told the magazine that “what the signs will actually say and who is writing the text remains a mystery” even to those working on them.

Merkel and Murkowski are top members of the Senate Appropriations Committee, which manages the Smithsonian’s funding. The letter says the signs will number about a dozen and will cost $7,000 each, or about $84,000 total.

Burgum’s letter complains that NMAH director Anthea Hartig “has stated that history is ‘a prime tool of social justice,’” NPR reports, and asserts that the museum is trying “to legitimize illegal immigration and open borders.” It accuses the museum of mounting exhibits that “present ideological viewpoints inconsistent with biology, including ideologies that sex is not binary.”

The letter also accuses outgoing Smithsonian director Lonnie G. Bunch III of a “history of invidious discrimination and anti-white animus.”

“This is another step in a well-planned pressure campaign by the Trump Administration to undermine the integrity and independence of the Smithsonian Institution,” Merkley told NPR in an email. “I’ll fight like hell to protect the Smithsonian’s independence so that the Institution can continue to tell all of America’s story for generations to come.”

Since beginning his second term, Trump has had his sights on the Smithsonian, issuing an executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” just two months after taking office in 2025. It directed the Smithsonian to eliminate “divisive” and “anti-American” content from its exhibitions and restore “monuments, memorials, statues, [and] markers” removed from its public spaces since 2020. 

Earlier this month,, Trump demanded that a “strange modernist” sculpture on the NMAH grounds (actually a 1967 piece by José de Rivera) be removed in favor of a 30-foot statue of George Washington.