Smithsonian’s First Black Chief Pushes Back on Everything Trump Said

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch responded to President Trump’s most recent attack, framing the White House’s hostile 162-page July 4 report as a gross misrepresentation of what the storied cultural institution actually does.

“While there will always be room for improvement, this report is not a fair characterization of the work and totality of the National Museum of American History,” Bunch said in an internal letter obtained by ABC News. “At the Smithsonian, our work is driven by scholarship, accuracy, and an uncompromising commitment to tell the fullness of America’s story.… As public servants and the keepers of this institution, we are charged with helping a nation find understanding, hope, and clarity and as part of that duty, we are dedicated to excellence, reflection, and growth.”

The White House’s Domestic Policy Council essentially called the Smithsonian an extremist, anti-white, anti-American organization, writing that the museum “has become subject to institutional capture by a radical, activist ideology that is fundamentally opposed to telling the noble, honest story of the great country we know and love.”

“As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian’s flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads: ‘Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country,’” the report concluded.

Bunch, who is the Smithsonian’s first Black chief and whose time leading the institution may very well be limited, encouraged his staff to continue to use their work to “find understanding, hope, and clarity.”

How much can you really love America if you’re not willing to see all sides of its history, from its most triumphant moments to its most abhorrent ones? Everything contained in the Smithsonian museums—from the National African American History and Culture Museum to the American Art Museum—is there because it had an outsize impact on American culture. It seems that the right just can’t handle hearing anything negative about this country at all, regardless of how truthful it is.

President Donald Trump tried to take credit for Walmart’s summer sale, but it seems he didn’t have anything to do with lowering prices.

White House senior deputy press secretary Kush Desai crashed out Thursday when faced with a report that Trump didn’t deserve any credit for Walmart’s recent price reduction on beef, which has seen an average national price increase of 13 percent in the last year.

“The President and Walmart’s announcement was that the sale is extending all summer long,” he wrote on X. “This is a big win for Americans. The media’s obsessive need to try to undermine any good news when it affects President Trump is pathological.”

Trump announced Monday that he’d directed the country’s largest grocer to initiate massive price cuts—but the company’s standard seasonal sale was already underway.

“I have just been informed that one of the biggest, best, and smartest Retailers in America, Walmart, will be lowering prices, by a lot, at my Administration’s request to celebrate our great Country’s 250th birthday,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Walmart will, in particular, be dropping the price for a pound of ground beef by almost 15%, among many other products.”

But a spokesperson for Walmart told The Bulwark Thursday that the retailer had begun one of its price “rollback” events last week—before Trump declared he’d won a discount for millions of Americans.

In a press release Monday, Walmart announced that it would lower prices for barbecue essentials like ground beef, potato chips, and soda. Nowhere in the press release did the company mention the Trump administration, or the country’s 250th anniversary.

Trump’s Department of Agriculture has begun a pressure campaign on grocers to lower beef prices, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday. But when the USDA called up Walmart, the retailer said it already had plans to reduce prices for the summer, including for beef, two people familiar with the matter told the Journal.

Walmart ran a Walmart Deals campaign between June 22 and June 28. It appears that the company already had plans to extend the sale after that date without any urging from Trump at all.

Nine months after delivering his widely mocked “beardo” speech, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is still fuming about the military’s (according to him) lax attitude toward grooming standards.

Hegseth has recently complained in private about seeing service members with facial hair, going so far as to suggest that the military’s senior leadership has not fully embraced his new appearance and hygiene requirements, according to U.S. officials that spoke with CBS News Friday.

One unidentified official told the network that Hegseth was frustrated that his speech last year did not produce immediate results.

Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell attributed Hegseth’s anger to his high expectations.

“Secretary Hegseth maintains the highest expectations for our service members to uphold the professional standards of appearance, fitness, and discipline that define our warfighting force, and he continues to emphasize consistent enforcement of hair, weight, and grooming standards across all ranks,” Parnell said in a statement to CBS News.

“Commanders at every level are expected to lead by example by meeting these standards, implementing these requirements, and they will be held accountable for delivering results as the Department works to restore a culture of excellence and readiness,” Parnell continued. “Our Armed Forces are stronger when every service member meets and exceeds these expectations.”

Last September, Hegseth ordered hundreds of America’s top military commanders to leave their international posts to attend a mandatory in-person assembly in Quantico, Virginia, during which the hairphobic ex–Fox News host unveiled his agenda to de-woke the country’s armed forces.

The plan involved snipping away shaving waivers, despite the disproportionate impact that the requirement would have on Black service members, who are more frequently diagnosed with pseudofolliculitis barbae—or chronic razor bumps—due to the curl pattern of the hair and the subsequent injurious effects of frequently shaving their faces. The painful inflammatory condition has been estimated to affect somewhere between 45 percent to 83 percent of the Black male population in the U.S.

“No more beardos,” Hegseth said during his address. “Calling someone to shave, or work hard, is exactly the kind of workforce we want.”

“The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done,” Hegseth noted at the time, adding that anyone unwilling to comply should look for a “new position or a new profession.”

Branches of the military have distributed their own internal guidance per the new grooming mandate, revealing that even those with medical exemptions will not be allowed to receive accommodations past 12 consecutive months.

The Trump administration wants to fence off parts of Pennsylvania Avenue outside of the White House, shutting down a historic space for political protests.

The Washington Post reports that the administration and Secret Service plan to put fences where Pennsylvania Avenue crosses 15th and 17th Streets NW, allowing them to close pedestrian access if they decide there are security risks.

Multiple presidential administrations have used temporary barriers on Pennsylvania Avenue, but the Secret Service’s suggestion to erect permanent fences there has faced pushback as a clear attempt to restrict public access to the White House. The Trump administration is also planning to put up permanent fencing around Lafayette Square, a public park across from the White House and another historic protest space.

The fences on Pennsylvania Avenue would affect multiple organizations that are located on the street, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery and the Milken Center for Advancing the American Dream. And new fencing could cut off the public’s view of the White House and deter, if not outright bar, pedestrians from getting through.

“This would mean that residents and tourists alike would be unable to see the White House from any reasonable distance, especially if Trump plants more trees in the Park,” said Michael McGill, a former General Services Administration official who also served on the Capitol Planning Commission, in an email to the Post, referring to Trump’s other plan to plant 47 trees in Lafayette Park.

In May, parts of Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Lafayette Square were painted with yellow lines to allow cars to park during special events over the summer, including President Trump’s “UFC Freedom 250” birthday fight and fan festival at the Ellipse. Trump has gone out of his way to remake the White House (like his ballroom) and the parts of Washington near it without any regard for public opinion.

The men who were in Lorenzo Salgado Araujo’s vehicle when an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed him on Tuesday say he did not try ram the immigration agents’ unmarked car—directly contradicting ICE’s version of events.

The agents stated that Salgado Araujo, a Mexican immigrant and father of three who was on his way to work, had ignored their verbal commands, “weaponized his vehicle,” and tried to run over one of them. The agent shot him and claimed self-defense.

“That is a lie,” Jose Trinidad Rojas, 51, said in a handwritten statement offered to The Washington Post by his lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra. “It is impossible for them to say that they were going to get run over.... There were no officers in front of or behind the vehicle. They were on the sides.... Lorenzo thought we had lost them but suddenly they surrounded us.”

Balderas-Ibarra said he spoke to Rojas and the two other passengers—Daniel Tirado Pantoja and Victor Salgado, Salgado Araujo’s brother—separately, and each stated that ICE lied about Salgado Araujo’s violent intent. Victor also said that agents began firing from their vehicle’s passenger side, striking his brother in the abdomen and then mocking him while he bled out, saying, “You wanted to escape, right?”

All four men in the car had been in the United States for at least two decades. They were arrested and taken into custody shortly after the shooting.

Not only do these witnesses say ICE is lying, the footage of the incident suggests they were too. Video obtained by local outlet KHOU 11 shows the agents tried to box Salgado Araujo’s car in with their unmarked black SUV, initiating the conflict. When Salgado Araujo made a U-turn and fled in the other direction, the agents (who could have been anyone to him, as they were in an unmarked vehicle) followed him. Even worse, The New York Times reported that Salgado Araujo wasn’t even the intended target—they were hunting two immigrants from Guatemala. Now Salgado Araujo is dead for no reason. He is the tenth person to be fatally shot by federal immigration agents since President Trump returned to office.