From the New York Times, I'm Rachel Abrams, and this is The Daily.

President Trump is now calling for an overhaul to the museums in the United States,

the president accusing the Smithsonian of making our country look horrible by focusing on topics like,

quote, how bad slavery was.

In the last few weeks, the Trump administration has turned its sights on the Smithsonian,

the latest target in a campaign to remake cultural institutions in its image.

The White House will be reviewing material in some of the museums to make sure that they

align with the president's

view of history. Officials are attempting to change exhibits at the center of the country's

culture wars and reshape American history at one of the largest museum complexes in the world.

We want the museums to treat our country fairly. We want the museums to talk about the history of our country in a fair manner, not in a woke manner or a racist manner.

Today, my colleague Robin Pogrebin on the fight over who gets to tell the American story and how.

Thank you. It's Wednesday, September 3rd.

Robin, since taking office, the Trump administration has been trying to exert control over some of America's most important cultural institutions.

And it really feels like we're seeing that effort crescendo at the Smithsonian, which you have been paying a lot of attention to. You are a

reporter who has for a very long time covered arts and culture in the United States. Can you tell us

what has been happening? Yeah, so it's been a remarkable few months that amounts to essentially a wholesale

attack on the arts. I think what's been happening, you can see most clearly in a recent post from President Trump himself, where he described museums as the last remaining segment of woke.

And he called the Smithsonian in particular out of control. And to go after an institution as big and prestigious and as critical to American culture as the Smithsonian,

it's just a really dramatic escalation.

Why does the attack on the Smithsonian feel like such an escalation?

Well, the Smithsonian has both historic and symbolic power.

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