OddsFrontTrump asks Smithsonian to install 30-foot Washington statue and new exhibit
The request extends a White House campaign to reshape historical presentation at the federally supported but independently governed institution.
A new request to remake the museum’s entrance
US President Donald Trump asked the Smithsonian Institution to place a 30-foot statue of George Washington outside the National Museum of American History and create a special exhibition about the first president. Trump made the request in a social-media post late on September 11. He said the exhibition should remain through February 2032, the 300th anniversary of Washington’s birth.
The proposed statue would replace the Infinity sculpture by José de Rivera, a work commissioned by the federal government and installed outside the museum in 1967. Trump also criticised the museum’s treatment of Washington’s crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton and proposed replacing a discontinued restorative-history initiative with a centre focused on national heroes.
The request is not yet a completed installation order. The Smithsonian sits outside the executive branch and is overseen by a Board of Regents that includes the vice-president, the chief justice, lawmakers and citizen members. It was therefore unclear from Trump’s post alone whether the president could compel the precise exhibit and sculpture changes he described.
Part of a broader White House campaign
The proposal follows two formal executive orders. A March 2025 order directed administration officials to press for exhibits that emphasise national achievement and tasked the vice-president with advancing that policy through his place on the Smithsonian board. A July 2026 order instructed federal agencies to use available authorities and funding conditions to promote changes and directed temporary signs outside the museum describing the administration’s objections.
The next question is how the Smithsonian’s regents and outgoing leadership respond. They must determine whether to accept the statue, alter the exterior site, develop the requested exhibition or defend the institution’s curatorial independence. Any implementation would also require practical decisions about ownership, conservation, planning and funding. For now, the established development is a presidential request backed by an existing policy campaign, not a confirmed museum installation.