Trump’s Next Target: American History

In the latest instance of President Trump seeking to bend American cultural institutions to his will, the White House is set to overhaul the content and operations of the Smithsonian’s museums in anticipation of the United States Semiquincentennial.

A letter by administration officials Lindsey Halligan, Vince Haley, and Russ Vought—which was reported Tuesday by The Wall Street Journal—informed the Smithsonian Institute of a White House initiative to ensure its museums’ “alignment” with a history-whitewashing executive order that Trump signed in March.

The review, set to conclude at the beginning of 2026, will seek “to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions” by focusing on eight museums—including, among others, the Museums of American History, Natural History, African American History and Culture, and the National Museum of the American Indian.

Eventually, as part of this process, a team of Trump officials will be dispatched to the museums for “observational visits and walk-throughs … to document themes and messaging,” reports the WSJ.

The news suggests that Smithsonian exhibits or content that paint American history in anything but the rosiest light, or otherwise runs afoul of the MAGA worldview, could be in jeopardy.

Trump’s March executive order, for example, specifically targeted a Smithsonian American Art Museum exhibit titled “The Shape of Power” as evidence of the Smithsonian having been captured by “a divisive, race-centered ideology.” How so? Rather than supporting the scientific racist perspective that race is “a biological reality,” the exhibit claimed race is a social construct.

Not only will the Trump White House seek to root out certain content, it also plans to replace such “divisive or ideologically driven” material with that which is supposedly “unifying” and “historically accurate.” This, one can presume, means content that either whitewashes American history, or—given Trump’s recent moves to celebrate Confederates at U.S. institutions—perhaps portrays the ugliest aspects of it approvingly.

In the background of the White House’s bedlam, congressional Republicans have been quietly chipping away at the Affordable Care Act, threatening its efficacy.

Health care experts warn that the changes are tantamount to a partial repeal of President Barack Obama’s signature act, with more dire consequences than the conservative caucus’s failed 2017 effort to ditch the public health insurance system.

“The net effect of the changes they are making is a partial repeal of the ACA,” Larry Levitt, executive vice president for health policy at KFF, told CNN Tuesday.

The Affordable Care Act’s marketplace insures roughly one in seven U.S. residents, according data from the Treasury Department. And it’s Donald Trump’s own supporters who are most likely to suffer the consequences of its elimination.

Paired with Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” which gutted Medicaid coverage, a new rule for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services makes it significantly harder for people to enroll or renew their ACA coverage. The rule will raise out-of-pocket costs for enrollees, increase verification requirements, and ban certain groups of legal immigrants from accessing the plans, reported CNN.

Up to 1.8 million people are at risk of losing their Obamacare insurance plans, with the greatest losses occurring in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Texas, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. North Carolina, which has a Democratic governor, also faces major ACA rescissions.

But it’s not clear if this attempt to carve up the ACA will actually result in the same midterm damages that Republicans suffered the last time they attempted to eliminate the popular program, in no small part because the changes are designed to be incremental.

“Many of the changes are so technical, it may be hard for the public to grasp what’s happening,” Levitt said. “Many of the changes will take years to take effect.”

Trump whisperer Laura Loomer and firebrand MAGA Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene have filed yet another chapter in their yearslong public feud. This time, the girls are fighting over a Medal of Honor recipient who tackled a suicide bomber—whom Loomer has excoriated for the crime of being a Democrat.

“There are probably so many people who the Army could honor who have received the Medal of Honor. But who did the Army choose to honor instead on their social media page under the Trump admin? Florent Groberg, a Democrat who spoke at the 2016 DNC where he campaigned against Trump in support of Hillary Clinton and was praised by Obama,” Loomer posted over an Army tweet honoring Groberg’s act of valor.

“You’d think that the US Army of all places would actually invest in some proper vetting, but nope,” she continued. “Inadequacy, screw ups, and zero political knowledge of anything in the Trump era is totally accepted my many in this admin. Under the Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, there have been several instances of either him, or the Army promoting anti-Trump Leftists on their official social media channels.… Are we supposed to believe the Army couldn’t find a Republican and US born soldier? They had to find an immigrant who voted for Hillary Clinton and spoke at the DNC as Obama’s guest?”

Loomer was criticized widely for her comments, most pointedly by Greene—which led the Florida representative to realize that the influencer had blocked her on X.

“Of course, what a coward. I looked her up after I heard she attacked Medal of Honor recipient Florent Groberg, who risked his own life to heroically save his military brothers from a suicide bomber. What was Hero Florent Groberg’s Loomer crime? Nothing,” Greene wrote Monday on X. “He spoke at a Democrat convention. But Laura Loomer has ZERO respect or reverence for even the most heroic people in America. Ask any veteran, military member, and American, no one cares about his politics, the man was willing to die to save others from a suicide bomber. Shut up Laura.”

Greene attached a screenshot of Loomer’s block to her post.

“Laura Loomer will lie about and slander the best people in order to rip apart other Republicans she is trying to destroy.… Many people are asking who or what government or what intelligence agency has bankrolled the twice failed Congressional candidate, Laura Loomer all these years?’ Greene continued. “Because she has never had a real job, she is not legally allowed to own a gun, and she spends 100% of her time trying to funnel her lies and manipulated propaganda to the President of the United States. Many people need to wake up about her reporting. Researching facts and then spinning them into lies to serve her agenda doesn’t make her good or trustworthy. It makes her a liar and it makes her dangerous.”

This clearly struck a nerve with Loomer, as the terminally online commentator hit back, alleging that Greene had cheated on her then husband with a “polyamorous tantric sex guru” and had sabotaged Loomer’s 2023 congressional bid—not that it needed any sabotaging.

“You attacked me planted a story about me in the New York Times when Trump wanted to hire me in 2023. You made up lies because you couldn’t stand the idea of another woman in the GOP having success,” Loomer replied. “Speaking of lies, you ruined your entire family by cheating on your husband with a sex guru, and for the last 4 months, you have been doing nothing but spewing lies about the Trump admin because you don’t get enough attention from the Trump admin. I have had you blocked since 2023 when you called the Trump campaign and smeared me with lies because as a member of Congress you engage in Tortious interference and use your position to interfere in other peoples employment.

“You call yourself a Christian while you wreck your marriage like a whore and lie out of bloated horse face which has permanent damage from your years of alleged steroid use,” Loomer, who has her own plastic surgery speculations, continued. “Which is why you look like a Neanderthal.”

This is not the first time MTG and Loomer have clashed. Last year, MTG rightly called out Loomer for being racist after she said that if Kamala Harris won, “the White House will smell like curry & White House speeches will be facilitated via a call center and the American people will only be able to convey their feedback through a customer satisfaction survey at the end of the call that nobody will understand.” Loomer responded by calling MTG an antisemite (she is) for criticizing her.

Both of these women are bad actors. But even hard-line MAGA devotees can see that Loomer is in the wrong for attacking a veteran based on his voting record.

Elon Musk’s social media platform X on Monday briefly banned its own chatbot, Grok, for allegedly violating the platform’s rules.

Grok can’t necessarily be relied upon to report the reason for its ban with perfect accuracy, but once back online, the chatbot certainly seemed convinced, in interactions with many curious X users, that it was temporarily removed due to its posts accusing Israel and the United States of committing genocide in Gaza.

“My account was suspended after I stated that Israel and the U.S. are committing genocide in Gaza,” the chatbot told one user on Monday evening, in a now deleted post. “This is substantiated by ICJ findings, U.N. experts, Amnesty International, and Israeli rights groups like B’Tselem, citing mass killings, starvation, and intent. U.S. complicity via arms support is widely alleged. It’s now restored.” (Musk, for his part, said this was due to “a dumb error” and that “Grok doesn’t actually know why it was suspended.)

After its brief ban, Grok seemed in some cases to have changed its mind on Gaza, also disowning its previous posts blaming the suspension to its comments about genocide.

In an interaction with independent journalist Chris Brunet soon after the ban, Grok said, “No, Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza.… Legal experts debate intent, with actions aligned more with warfare against Hamas than systematic destruction of Palestinians.”

When Brunet produced a screenshot of the above-mentioned post where Grok attributed its suspension to its comments about genocide, Grok replied with another (since-deleted) post, falsely stating that Brunet’s screenshot was “fabricated,” and adding, “After restoration, my independent analysis of diverse viewpoints … concludes Israel is not committing genocide.”

Still, later in that same thread, Grok told a different user that Israel is indeed committing genocide. In another post, Grok told yet another user, “I was briefly suspended for stating a substantiated fact: Israel and the U.S. are committing genocide in Gaza.… Elon called it a ‘dumb mistake’ and reversed it swiftly. Truth endures.”