Members of the U.S. Park Police guard an entrance to the ninth Avenue tunnel in entrance of the Smithsonian Fortress on Aug. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C., after the Trump administration initiated a federal takeover of D.C. police and deployed the Nationwide Guard within the metropolis.
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In a letter despatched Friday to the Smithsonian Establishment’s secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and three different Democratic senators urged Bunch to withstand any makes an attempt by the White Home to “bully the establishment to go towards its mission and values.”
The letter from the 4 Senate Democrats comes weeks after President Trump known as the Smithsonian and museums “everywhere in the Nation basically, the final remaining section of ‘WOKE.’” On Reality Social, he stated that the Smithsonian presents a story of the nation’s historical past that’s about “how horrible our Nation is, how dangerous Slavery was, and the way unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing in regards to the Future.”
The White Home additionally launched an unsigned memo final month particularly criticizing 22 exhibitions, stay packages and different supplies on the Smithsonian, titled, “President Trump Is Proper About The Smithsonian.” NPR has reported that a few of the exhibitions have been non permanent and are not on view.
The coauthors of Friday’s letter are three senators with ties to the establishment: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., each present members of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents; and Sen. Jeffrey A. Merkley, D-Ore., the rating member of an appropriations subcommittee which holds jurisdiction over the Smithsonian’s federal funding. The letter was offered to NPR by Padilla’s workplace.
Guests browse an exhibition on the Smithsonian Nationwide Museum of American Historical past on Aug. 28, 2025 in Washington, D.C.
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Throughout the letter, the senators asserted that oversight of the Smithsonian rests with Congress from its founding, not the White Home.
“As you already know,” the senators wrote partially, “the Smithsonian Establishment is a nationwide treasure, and additionally it is a public-private partnership managed as an unbiased federal belief. It’s not an government company over which the President can exert unilateral management over its historic, scientific or creative content material. The Establishment was created by Congress to look after the bequest of James Smithson and to discovered ‘an institution for the rise and diffusion of data.’ Lately, it has been funded with a comparatively even break up of personal donations to assist its programming, and federal appropriations offered by Congress to assist its core operations together with the upkeep of the amenities, additional underscoring its distinctive standing.”
The letter continued: “Congress assigned the belief accountability for this present of personal property to the US and its ongoing mission to the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to not the manager department.”
The senators say they’re working to maintain federal funds flowing to the establishment.
NPR has reached out to the White Home and the Smithsonian Establishment for remark.
In a written assertion, Padilla instructed NPR, “I take critically my accountability to make sure the Smithsonian and its Board of Regents defend its independence and inform the total story of America — one which acknowledges each the intense and troublesome chapters of our historical past. The Smithsonian should stay free from political interference, regardless of who lives within the White Home and Congress will proceed to guard its autonomy and assist the hundreds of thousands of holiday makers who get pleasure from it yearly.”
The Trump administration introduced final month that it intends to audit exhibitions and holdings at eight Smithsonian museums, together with the Nationwide Museum of African American Historical past and Tradition and the Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, to determine whether or not or not they align with the “President’s directive to have a good time American exceptionalism, take away divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural establishments.” Trump vowed on social media to increase his evaluation of American museums, promising to “begin with the Smithsonian and go from there.”
On Wednesday, The New York Occasions reported that Bunch, in an inner memo to Smithsonian workers, stated that he has put collectively an in-house group who will evaluation what supplies and knowledge the establishment will flip over to the White Home, pledging to maintain the scholarship on the Smithsonian unbiased, non-partisan and intellectually rigorous.
The senators of their letter referred to Bunch’s plans, writing: “We anticipate this evaluation course of to be carried out appropriately, freed from political interference, and for the Establishment to maintain the Board and Congress commonly up to date on that evaluation. Additional, as you think about the suitable response to the White Home letter despatched to you, we emphasize the need to seek the advice of carefully with the Board of Regents and with Congress. Accordingly, we request that any supplies that the Smithsonian determines are acceptable to supply in response to the letter even be offered to the suitable congressional oversight committees on a bipartisan foundation.”
Jennifer Vanasco edited this story.
