On July 24, 2026, President Donald Trump signed an order telling the Interior Department to put up temporary signs along the walkways leading into the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. The signs would tell visitors that the museum's exhibits are inaccurate and politically biased, according to the White House (The Guardian, 2026-07-25; White House, 2026-07-24).

The order is titled "Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution." It gives three officials the job of creating and placing the signs: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the National Park Service, and Vince Haley, the president's Assistant for Domestic Policy (White House, 2026-07-24).

The signs have two main purposes. First, they would notify visitors that the museum's exhibits should be fixed to match a White House report, and point people to other sources for American history. Second, separate signs would criticize the Smithsonian for not doing enough to celebrate the Declaration of Independence during its 250th anniversary year (White House, 2026-07-24).

The order says the museum "failed to appropriately honor the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence during this 250th anniversary year of the founding of our country" (White House, 2026-07-24). The United States is currently marking its semiquincentennial — 250 years since the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

The order is based on a report finished after a months-long review of the Smithsonian. The report is called "Saving America's Story: How Ideological Capture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History Erases Our Heritage." "Ideological capture" means the report is claiming the museum's leaders have been taken over by a particular political viewpoint (The Guardian, 2026-07-25; White House, 2026-07-24). The National Museum of American History declined to comment on the order (The Guardian, 2026-07-25).

The order also goes beyond signage. Section 2 tells several officials — the Secretary of the Interior, the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, the Administrator of General Services, and the president's Domestic Policy Assistant — to use "all available authorities" to restore trust in the Smithsonian (White House, 2026-07-24). The White House also published a fact sheet the same day (White House, 2026-07-24).

This is not a one-time action. The order cites an earlier executive order from March 27, 2025, called "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History" (White House, 2026-07-24). That was followed by a letter in August 2025 starting a review of Smithsonian exhibits (White House, 2025-08-12; White House, 2025-03-27). So the timeline goes: a first order, then a letter, then a long review, and now this new order demanding physical signs outside the museum.

The way the order works is unusual. Instead of trying to change the Smithsonian through its own governing board or through Congress, the order uses the National Park Service. The Park Service takes care of the walkways around the museum on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. That means the Interior Department can put signs on the paths leading up to the museum without needing the Smithsonian's permission. The Smithsonian gets some federal money but runs independently as what the law calls a "trust instrumentality" — a status meant to protect it from direct government control. Using the Park Service's control of the surrounding walkways appears to be a way around that independence.

The broader context here goes beyond one museum's signs. The officials named in Section 2 have tools that reach into the Smithsonian's funding and buildings. The Office of Management and Budget controls the federal money Congress gives the Smithsonian. The General Services Administration manages federal buildings and purchasing. Together with the Park Service's access to the walkways, the administration has several ways to pressure the Smithsonian without directly controlling what goes into its exhibits.

So far, the Smithsonian's only response has been to decline comment. Whether the institution fights the order, goes along with it, or asks Congress to step in is still unclear. The Smithsonian's Board of Regents includes members of Congress, which could become a place for pushback. But because the signs would go on Park Service walkways rather than Smithsonian property, the institution may not need to agree for the signs to go up.