Again in March, President Donald Trump signed an govt order focused on the Smithsonian Establishment that started as follows: “Over the previous decade, Individuals have witnessed a concerted and widespread effort to rewrite our Nation’s historical past, changing goal info with a distorted narrative pushed by ideology reasonably than reality.”
Regardless of the high-minded rhetoric, many apprehensive the order was as a substitute a thinly veiled effort to rewrite historical past extra to Trump’s liking. The order, for instance, cited a want to take away “improper ideology” – an ominous phrase, if there ever was one – from properties just like the Smithsonian.
These considerations have been definitely bolstered this week. We realized that some historic data that just lately vanished from the Smithsonian simply so occurs to have been goal historical past that Trump actually dislikes: a reference to his two impeachments.
The Smithsonian stated {that a} board containing the data was faraway from the Nationwide Museum of American Historical past final month after a assessment of the museum’s “legacy content material.” The board had been positioned in entrance of an current impeachment exhibit in September 2021.
Simply to drive this residence: The exhibit itself is about “Limits of Presidential Energy.” And immediately examples of the most important efforts by Congress to restrict Trump’s have been gone.
The Impeachment exhibit within the “Limits of Presidential Energy” part inside “The American Presidency: A Superb Burden” exhibition contained in the Smithsonian’s Nationwide Museum of American Historical past, after the museum eliminated express reference to President Donald Trump. – Annabelle Gordon/Reuters
It wasn’t instantly clear that the board was eliminated pursuant to Trump’s govt order. The Washington Publish, which broke the information, reported {that a} supply stated the content material assessment got here after stress from the White Home to take away an artwork museum director.
In different phrases, we don’t know all the small print of exactly how this went down – together with whether or not the elimination was particularly requested, or whether or not museum officers determined it may be a great way to placate Trump amid stress. The Smithsonian stated in an announcement Saturday that it was “not requested by any administration” or authorities official to take away content material and that an up to date model of the exhibit will finally point out all impeachment efforts, together with Trump’s.
However it’s all fairly Orwellian. And it’s not the one instance.
Trump has at all times been reasonably blatant about his efforts to rewrite historical past with self-serving falsehoods and reasonably shameless in making use of stress on the individuals who would function neutral referees of the present narrative. However this week has taken issues to a different stage.
On Friday, Trump fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This got here simply hours after that company delivered Trump some very dangerous information: the worst non-Covid three-month jobs numbers since 2010.
Some Trump allies have tried to place face on this, arguing that Dr. Erika McEntarfer’s elimination was warranted as a result of massive revisions within the job numbers betrayed shoddy work. However as he did with the firing of then-FBI Director James B. Comey eight years in the past, Trump shortly undermined all that. He instructed Newsmax that “we fired her as a result of we didn’t imagine the numbers right this moment.”
To the extent Trump did lay out an precise evidence-based case for firing McEntarfer, that proof was conspiratorial and incorrect, as CNN’s Daniel Dale documented Friday.
And even some Republican senators acknowledged this may be exactly as draconian and self-serving because it regarded. Sen. Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming, for one, referred to as it “type of impetuous” to fireside the BLS head earlier than discovering out whether or not the brand new numbers have been truly incorrect.
“It’s not the statistician’s fault if the numbers are correct and that they’re not what the president had hoped for,” stated Lummis, who will not be usually a Trump critic.
Recruiters and job seekers communicate throughout a job honest hosted by the Cook dinner County authorities to help federal employees in Chicago, Illinois, on Thursday, June 26, 2025. – Jamie Kelter Davis/Bloomberg/Getty Photographs
Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina added that if Trump “simply did it as a result of they didn’t just like the numbers, they should develop up.”
Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska each apprehensive that Trump’s transfer would make it so individuals can’t belief the information the administration is placing out.
And that’s the actual drawback right here. It’s not a lot that Trump seems to be firing somebody as retaliation; it’s the message it sends to everybody else in an analogous place. The message is that you may want that knowledge and people conclusions to be to Trump’s liking, or else.
It’s a recipe for getting loads of unreliable knowledge and conclusions. And even to the extent that data is strong, it’ll seed suspicions in regards to the books having been cooked – each amongst common Individuals and, crucially, amongst these making key selections that affect the economic system. What occurs if the following jobs report is nice? Will the markets imagine it?
We’ve definitely seen loads of reasonably blunt Trump efforts to regulate such narratives and rewrite historical past earlier than. A sampling:
He engaged in a yearslong effort to make Jan. 6 defendants who attacked the Capitol in his identify out to be sympathetic patriots, even calling them “hostages,” earlier than pardoning them.
His administration’s efforts to weed out variety, fairness and inclusion from the federal government usually ensnared issues that merely celebrated Black individuals and girls.
He and his administration have at instances taken reasonably dim views of the free speech rights of those that disagree with them, together with speaking about mere protests – i.e. not essentially violence – as being “unlawful.” A loyalist US legal professional at one level threatened to pursue individuals who criticized then-Trump ally Elon Musk even for non-criminal habits.
All of it reinforces the concept Trump is making an attempt to consolidate energy by pursuing reasonably heavy-handed and blatant techniques.
But when there’s per week that basically drove residence how blunt these efforts could be, it may be this one.
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