GOP lawmaker demands answers after Smithsonian chief urged moving beyond 'America First mentality'

Rep. Mike Carey, R-Ohio, grilled Smithsonian leadership at a hearing on Wednesday on why the National Museum of American History (NMAH) had dropped mention of "American history" from its mission statement in

"You explained that the museum removed the phrase ‘American history’ from the mission statement in order to help people ‘to get out of the America-first mentality,’ Carey said, posing his question to Anthea Hartig, NMAH administrator.

"What did you mean by America-first?" he asked.

Carey’s line of questioning, made during a Committee on House Administration hearing on Wednesday, comes as Republicans in Congress have made preserving America’s heritage a proxy for larger struggles over national identity and cultural values.

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Progressive thinkers, such as Hartig, have argued that keeping the darker parts of American history in view should inform an understanding of the country’s past — and help set its policy direction in the present.

In response, many Republican lawmakers have voiced deep unrest over efforts to characterize the U.S. as marked by oppression or slavery — such as the New York Times’ 1619 Project. Many conservatives have argued that the American ideals, laid out in documents like the Declaration of Independence, transcend even the country’s most blatant failures to live up to those aspirations; that they are anything but definitive of the American experience.

The conversation has also taken on a new focus in President Donald Trump’s second term as the administration has pulled out all the stops in celebrating the country’s 250th anniversary.

With calls to "Make America great again" and put "America first," the administration released a report called "Saving America’s Story."

That report highlighted the American History Museum’s decision to change its mission statement and called out Hartig specifically.

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"That shift from history to activism is clearly documented in this report. Anthea Hartig, NMAH’s director since 2019, has explicitly stated that she sees history as a ‘prime tool of social justice’ and one of her roles as connecting ‘research and scholarship to activism and advocacy,’" the report stated.

The report also details how Hartig had explained the change to NMAH's mission statement in a 2024 presentation to a group of undergraduate and graduate history students.

"It’s hard to get out of the ‘America First’ mentality ...It’s just that, and why we changed our mission when I first came," Hartig said. "I think it’s a big challenge, especially going into 2026, which will be the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, the 25th year since 9/11, the fifth year since January 6th."

Speaking before the committee on Wednesday, Hartig defended her view, claiming that she had not tried to make history a matter of activism through her leadership at NMAH.

"The museum does not take sides in America’s political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all its breadth, so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions," she stated.

"When historians talk about reframing a traditional narrative, we do not mean erasing it. We mean adding the evidence, voices and objects that earlier tellings left out, so that more Americans can see themselves in the national story. Examining the harder chapters of our history is not the same as hostility toward America."

But Carey, alongside other Republicans, appeared unconvinced.

"'The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.’" Carey cautioned, quoting George Orwell’s cautionary book on authoritarianism, 1984.

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"Let me get back to my original question — why do you think that ‘American history’ should be erased from the American History museum?" Carey added.

Hartig, pressed for time, did not give a response.