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Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, is splitting from the majority of Republicans on the GOP’s pushback against the Smithsonian Institution’s teaching of American history.
The moderate Republican senator sent a letter to the Trump administration alongside Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., asking for more information on President Donald Trump’s directive to install “temporary signage” outside the National Museum of American History, after he accused the museum of teaching historical accounts with an inaccurate and hyper-partisan lens.
“As Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, we write to express our concern and to request more information regarding the role the Department of the Interior (DOI) will have in implementing Executive Order (EO) 14416, ‘Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution,’” the letter said.
TRUMP ORDERS SIGNS OUTSIDE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM AMID ROW OVER ITS DEPICTION OF AMERICAN HISTORY
Republicans have heaped scrutiny on the Smithsonian Institution, which gets roughly $1 billion in taxpayer dollars from Congress annually, for exhibits that the GOP has argued are inherently political.
But Murkowski appeared to refute that in her bipartisan letter, writing to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, “For the past 180 years, the Smithsonian Institution has been committed to sharing objective historical evidence through research and education, not political narratives.”
“The Smithsonian Institution has worked tirelessly to present a comprehensive narrative of our nation’s amazing history, from its many triumphs to its trials. There is nothing more American than telling our story truthfully,” the senators said.
Trump signed an executive order late last month directing Burgum to utilize existing avenues “to restore trust in the Smithsonian Institution,” including installing “temporary exhibits or signage on [federally owned] sidewalks, walkways, and land used by the public that corrects inaccurate information presented in the Museum.”
Murkowski and Merkley are asking the administration for information on whether there’s any precedent for federal land or funds being used to communicate “conflicting information” to a nearby entity’s operations, who is compiling the information and what the timeline and cost of the signage will be.
Examples Republicans have seized on include an exhibit that described Disney’s “Steamboat Willie” as representing “vestiges of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy,” while accusing the broader curation of the museum of being “anti-white” and “woke.”
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It’s led several conservatives on the House Appropriations Committee to tell Fox News Digital they would like to see new guardrails on the Smithsonian’s federal funds to force the museum to change controversial exhibits or risk losing its government dollars.
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