Donald Trump on Friday ordered the interior department to display signs in front of the Smithsonian National Museum of American History that accuse the institution of inaccuracy.<\/p>\n
The order<\/a> escalates the Trump\u2019s attacks against the Smithsonian, which he and his allies accuse of politicizing the institution by focusing too much on injustices in American history, instead of more triumphant moments such as the signing of the Declaration of Independence.<\/p>\n The order directs interior secretary Doug Burgum to huddle with the National Park Service and assistant to the president for domestic policy Vince Haley to come up with some temporary signs to install along the National Parks Service-maintained sidewalks and walkways leading into the museum.<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for more details about what these signs would say.<\/p>\n The order says the signs \u201cshall notify visitors that the museum exhibits should be renovated consistent with the findings in the report\u201d. The signs should direct the public to other places where they can get better American history information, the order says.<\/p>\n The same group will also have to produce signs for the public criticizing the Smithsonian for not commemorating sufficiently the Declaration of Independence during the 250th anniversary of its adoption.<\/p>\n The American Historical Association, a group composed of professional historians, praised the Smithsonian Institution\u2019s \u201ccommitment to scholarship and accuracy\u201d in a statement earlier this month.<\/p>\n \u201cHistorians practice our craft with scholarly integrity according to established standards of evidence, historical inquiry, and professional practice,\u201d the AHA statement reads<\/a>. \u201cPolitical interference in professional museum work threatens the accuracy of historical interpretation and erodes public trust in one of our nation\u2019s most important institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n The National Museum of American History declined to comment.<\/p>\n But the museum\u2019s director, Anthea Hartig, defended the institution\u2019s interpretations in a pair of congressional hearings earlier this month, where Republican representatives fumed about \u201csome overtly sexual things up there\u201d and accused Hartig of encouraging \u201cself-loathing\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWe honor the declaration, the revolution, the constitution, our national symbols,\u201d Hartig responded, according to the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cAnd we tell the truth about the times that the country fell short of its own founding ideals. Telling our story fully is a form of respect for the American people and a commitment to constantly being in pursuit of a more perfect union.\u201d<\/p>\n A recent report<\/a> prepared by the White House\u2019s domestic policy council called \u201cSaving America\u2019s Story\u201d accused the museum\u2019s leadership of \u201cideological capture\u201d.<\/p>\n The Smithsonian \u201cexplicitly 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\u201d, the report says<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump on Friday ordered the interior department to display signs in front of the Smithsonian National Museum…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":710018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-710017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=710017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/710017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/710018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=710017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=710017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=710017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}