Claims that a White House official in charge of U.S. President Donald Trump's mandate to review exhibits within the Smithsonian Institution said, "You can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress," circulated online in August 2025.

Special Assistant to the President Lindsey Halligan said the Smithsonian museums had become "laboratories for political experiments."

It's not about whitewashing, it's all about full context, so while slavery is obviously a horrible aspect of our nation's history, you can't really talk about slavery honestly unless you also talk about hope and progress.

President Trump's adviser leading a review of Smithsonian museums' content defended the move as shifting the focus to progress, rather than dwelling on past mistakes, and argued that the museums should be geared toward pride in America's growth.

Is it whitewashing? It's not a museum's job to promote hope, thoughts and prayers. They exhibit the past. Trying to turn them into jingoistic happy meals is not the object. But Trump and his white supremacist base must re-write history so they don't feel bad.

An adviser to President Donald Trump said that while slavery was "horrible," no serious discussion of it is complete without the inclusion of "hope and progress."

In March, he signed an executive order titled "Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History," which accused the Smithsonian of coming under the influence of a "divisive, race-centered ideology" and sought to remove what it described as "improper ideology" from the institution's museums.

Lindsey Halligan, Special Assistant to the President, on Thursday said the Smithsonian museums over-emphasize slavery when they should focus on far the country has come. The Morning Joe panel discusses the Trump WH's continued review of the Smithsonian.

CNN political commentator Shermichael Singleton reacts to President Donald Trump’s claims museums were too focused on highlighting negative aspects of American history, including “how bad slavery was.