Lawmakers and historians ridiculed President Donald Trump’s executive order directing warning signs outside the Smithsonian’s history museum, calling it the “dumbest” order yet.
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Trump signed the order Friday, directing the National Park Service to install warning signs on public sidewalks outside the National Museum of American History, according to the executive order.
The order accuses museum leadership of “ideological capture” and says the signs must direct visitors to “locations and resources for accurate information regarding America’s history.”
“He’s insisting on posting these ignorant signs on sidewalks and walkways because he has no control over what is INSIDE the museum,” Yale historian Joanne Freeman wrote on Bluesky.
“Notably, this absurd executive order appears to recognize that Trump cannot directly control the Smithsonian,” former Justice Department official Eric Columbus wrote on Bluesky. The signs, Columbus noted, are ordered onto sidewalks maintained by the National Park Service — not on the museum itself.
“This is one of the dumbest and most bizarre Executive Orders we have ever read,” Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM) wrote on X.
“This EO is a clear political overreach, driven by an ideological agenda to rewrite American history,” Stansbury added.
“Time to destroy the Smithsonian just like I did the Kennedy Center,” Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) wrote on X.
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In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” — the opening move in a 16-month campaign against the museum.
By August 2025, his administration had launched a formal review of eight Smithsonian museums. On July 4 of this year — the nation’s 250th anniversary — the White House released a 162-page report accusing the museum of using American history as a “prime tool” to advance social justice.
Congressional hearings grilling museum director Anthea Hartig followed this week, according to the New York Times.
“Historians are appalled,” University of Massachusetts historian Samuel J. Redman told the Times. “The Smithsonian has been known for trying to present a consensus version of history.”
“When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we don’t mean erasing it,” Hartig said at this week’s hearings, according to the Times. “We mean adding the evidence, the voices, the objects that earlier tellings left out so that more Americans can see themselves reflected in the national story.”
Stansbury had the last word on social media.
“Our Smithsonian institutions do not belong to the president, but the American people, and so does our national story,” she wrote.
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