Trump: Museums focusing too much on “how bad slavery was”

Donald Trump has posted a long message on Truth Social, in which he attacks museums, which he describes as ” WOKE”.

Trump Slams Smithsonian for Harping on How ‘How Bad Slavery Was’

— Rolling Stone (@rollingstone.com) 2025-08-19T21:41:41.174Z

In his message, Trump resorts to shocking statements about slavery to support what he sees as a landmark example.

With this in mind, Trump now assures us that his administration has made “tremendous progress” against universities, and he now seems to have found his next target.

Donald Trump now wants to take aim at museums, which he believes should embody American exceptionalism, but which he now describes as “out of control”.

In his post, Donald Trump claims to have instructed his lawyers to initiate the same process as that carried out against universities, hammering home that “this country cannot be WOKE”.

According to Trump, museums, in particular the Smithsonian network, have become places “where we only talk about (…) how bad slavery was”.

This shocking statement provoked an immediate outcry from politicians, academics and the media alike.

Several voices accused Trump of wanting to “whitewash” American history and instrumentalize museums for ideological ends, while media outlets such as CNN and the Daily Beast denounced a frontal forward against the memory of slavery and the Smithsonian’s educational mission.