Smithsonian Chief At Center Of Trump Fight Over American History To Retire

Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III will retire at the end of the year following seven years at the institution’s helm and a contentious period of clashes with the Trump administration over how American history should be presented.

Bunch, 73, announced his retirement Tuesday with “very mixed emotions and heartfelt gratitude.” He has served as the Smithsonian’s secretary since 2019 and was the first African American to hold the institution’s top position.

Bunch rejected the suggestion that the administration’s pressure directly caused his departure. In an interview with the New York Times, he said, “now’s the time,” while acknowledging that the political fight had been stressful.

“I have to be honest, it has been stressful,” Bunch said. “And at a certain point, I’d like to wake up in the morning and not look at my cellphone.”

The announcement nevertheless comes after more than a year of increasingly direct confrontation between the Smithsonian and the Trump administration.

In March 2025, Trump signed an executive order titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,” directing officials to address what the administration described as “improper ideology” at the Smithsonian and other federally affiliated cultural institutions.

The order accused the Smithsonian of promoting narratives that portrayed American and Western values as inherently harmful and oppressive. It directed Vice President JD Vance, through his position on the Smithsonian Board of Regents, to work to remove such ideology from the institution.

The White House then conducted a broad review of Smithsonian museums and exhibitions. In July, the White House released a report titled “Saving America’s Story,” which accused leadership at the National Museum of American History of allowing ideological concerns to influence its presentation of the nation’s history.

Trump then ordered federal officials to install signage outside the National Museum of American History addressing what the administration described as inaccurate information about American history.

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum later accused museum officials of allowing a “radical institutional ideology” to permeate the National Museum of American History and argued that the result was an effort to weaken Americans’ shared national identity.

The Smithsonian pushed back against the administration’s characterization of its work. The institution is structurally independent from the executive branch, with its secretary selected by the Smithsonian Board of Regents.

The board includes Vance, members of Congress, citizen regents, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, who serves as the Smithsonian’s chancellor.

Roberts praised Bunch following Tuesday’s announcement, saying the secretary had “pursued excellence in the telling of our nation’s story” and that the Regents had benefited from his “wisdom, vision and leadership.”

Bunch spent nearly 38 years at the Smithsonian. He first joined the institution in 1978 and held several curatorial and leadership positions before leaving in 2000. He returned in 2005 to lead the creation of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened in 2016.

He became Smithsonian secretary three years later.

“I have spent nearly half of my life working at and being part of the Smithsonian family,” Bunch said in his retirement announcement. “What a privilege.”

Bunch is expected to remain in the position through the end of the year while the Board of Regents determines his successor.