On Aug. 12, the White House sent a letter to Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie G. Bunch saying it will conduct a “a comprehensive internal review of selected Smithsonian museums and exhibitions,” ahead of the nation’s 250th anniversary next year.
Trump’s depiction misrepresents the Smithsonian museums’ expansiveness and their portrayal of U.S. history. It was also a departure from 2017 comments he made about the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in which he called it “a beautiful tribute to so many American heroes.”
“I’m deeply proud that we now have a museum that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage, especially when it comes to faith, culture and the unbreakable American spirit,” he said at the time.
Slavery lasted more than 200 years and involved millions of people enslaved over generations. Its violence, brutality and complexities are reflected in Smithsonian museum exhibits. But the museums, which also address science, art and technology, are filled with many celebrations of American achievement, patriotism, success and innovation — including many of the most popular exhibits.
PolitiFact reporters toured three of the most visited Smithsonian museums the day after Trump’s comments.
The White House did not respond to an inquiry for this article.
Black Americans’ success on display
Trump’s concern that the museums discuss only “how bad slavery was” could be directed at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. It opened in 2016 and unabashedly details slavery’s horrors. But it includes much more.
A walk through the museum’s six levels reveals its overwhelming focus on Black Americans’ resilience, strength and success.
The top two floors celebrate Black Americans’ achievement and cultural influence.
Musician and rock & roll pioneer Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac Eldorado. (Grace Abels / PolitiFact)
Rooms are packed with memorabilia from iconic Black musicians: the Oscar De La Renta gown Whitney Houston wore while performing “The Greatest Love of All” in New York in 1986, Prince’s lavender suit, Chuck Berry’s red Cadillac Eldorado, and Louis Armstrong’s custom-made trumpet. Another top floor wing focuses on Black Americans’ legacy in film, television and theater, highlighting stars such as Will Smith, Oprah Winfrey and Paul Robeson. Another wing celebrates Black athletes including Jackie Robinson, Muhammed Ali and Serena Williams.
An exhibit displaying photos of Black Americans successful in television, film, comedy, theater and dance. (Grace Abels / PolitiFact)
The exhibits don’t ignore racism and segregation’s influence on their lives and careers, but often focus on how their work opened doors, defied stereotypes and helped dismantle oppressive systems.
Statue of Jesse Owens, track and field athlete and record-setting gold medalist at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. (Grace Abels / PolitiFact)
A third-floor exhibit titled “Making a Way Out of No Way,” also highlights Black Americans’ accomplishments. It includes a section on Dr. Ben Carson, a neurosurgeon who ran for president and served as the U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary during Trump’s first term.
An exhibit featuring hospital scrubs and other items belonging to Dr. Ben Carson. (Grace Abels / PolitiFact)
Trump praised Carson’s inclusion in the exhibit during his 2017 visit, and called out other featured figures —”heroes like Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Rosa Parks, the Greensboro students, and the African American Medal of Honor recipients, among so many other really incredible heroes,” he said.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture is also popular: It tied for fourth in attendance among Smithsonian properties in 2024, with 1.6 million visitors.
The museums focus on patriotism
Smithsonian museums are also chock full of patriotic items and exhibits celebrating American culture.
A centerpiece of the National Museum of American History — the second-most visited Smithsonian property, with 2.1 million visitors in 2024 — is the battle-scarred flag that inspired “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The museum describes it as “a national treasure.”
The Star Spangled Banner from the War of 1812 that inspired the national anthem at the National Museum of American History. (Louis Jacobson / PolitiFact)
A marble statue of President George Washington towers over visitors, and the exhibit on the American Revolution cheers the “common men” who made it possible.
One of the museum’s most popular exhibits is the collection of first ladies’ inaugural gowns. Visitors can purchase red-white-and-blue jewelry in the main level gift shop.
The first ladies’ inaugural gown exhibit at the National Museum of American History. (Louis Jacobson / PolitiFact)
Patriotism also runs deep through the American history museum’s extensive military exhibit. It includes musket-toting mannequins, field cannons, large paintings of Civil War battles and World War II victory newspaper headlines. The exhibit includes both a picture of a whipped slave and a Confederate battle flag, and it ends at a room honoring recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation’s highest award for military service.
The National Air and Space Museum is similarly patriotic. The museum — the Smithsonian’s third-most popular, with 1.9 million visitors in 2024 — marks the United States’ leading role in reaching outer space.
A NASA spacesuit at the National Air and Space Museum. (Louis Jacobson / PolitiFact)
As for “brightness,” it’s hard to ignore the nonpartisan pop culture icons at the American history museum, from Kermit the Frog to “Star Wars” droids and basketball legend Michael Jordan.
Muppets at an exhibit on popular culture at the National Museum of American History. (Louis Jacobson / PolitiFact)
Exhibits highlight American innovation and future technology
Both the American history and air and space museums honor American innovation and achievement. The air and space museum’s most famous exhibits include the Wright Brothers’ airplane, the “Spirit of St. Louis,” which Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic, and relics from the many U.S. missions to the moon.
The American history museum devotes a hall to “invention and innovation” and another to achievements in business, which notes the successes of Gilded Age business titans like the Rockefellers and Carnegies while acknowledging that their excesses prompted political reforms.
By nature, museums are largely backward-looking, but one can also find some peeks into the future. The air and space museum includes a capsule from Amazon founder Jeff Bezos’ space company, Blue Origin, while another section ponders how the space sector can help improve agriculture. The future plays a major role in the Smithsonian’s strategic plan, which is titled “Smithsonian 2027: Our Shared Future”
“Woke-ism” vs. nuance
Given his political agenda on gender identity and climate change, some exhibits might meet Trump’s description of “woke.”
At the American history museum, a display on the ground floor says, “The struggle for equal opportunity in sports began long before Title IX became law in 1972. And it continues today as transgender, nonbinary, and cisgender female athletes demand equality. Where does the fight for fair play in sports go from here?” (Trump has sought to enforce a policy to ban transgender women from participating in women’s sports in schools.)
The National Air and Space Museum includes an exhibit titled, “Aerospace and Our Changing Environment” that casts climate change as a “global threat,” something most scientists agree with but which many in Trump’s administration have cast doubt upon.
Both museums highlighted contributions by Americans of varying ethnic and racial backgrounds, and the American history museum frequently offered captions that were translated into Spanish.
However, the museums largely approach American identity with nuance, rooted in fundamental national texts like the U.S. Constitution.
One section of the American history museum — titled “Many Voices, One Nation,” a name that echoes the national motto “E Pluribus Unum,” or “From many, one” — says, “As the population grew, the people who lived in the United States found ways to work out, or negotiate, what it meant to be American. That negotiation continues.”
Another section, on the American experiment in democracy, ends with a direct quote from the Declaration of Independence.
An exhibit on Thomas Jefferson at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. (Grace Abels / PolitiFact)
In the National Museum of African American History and Culture, Thomas Jefferson’s liberating words from the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” are emblazoned on the wall while a bronze statue of him stands in front of bricks carved with the names of the 609 men and women he enslaved — including his own children.
Our ruling
Trump said the Smithsonian Institution has “Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
The Smithsonian seeks to tell the full, complicated story of the U.S., including slavery.
Visits to three of the Smithsonian 21 museums make clear that Trump’s view that its museums dwell only on the negative is wrong.
The National Museum of African American History and Culture spends much of its focus on Black Americans’ gains since slavery’s end. The National Museum of American History features key patriotic items from history, the military and pop culture. And the National Air and Space Museum is a monument to American technological ingenuity and global — and interplanetary — achievements.
We rate the statement Pants on Fire.
PolitiFact Researcher Caryn Baird contributed to this report.