Murkowski breaks with GOP to challenge Trump's Smithsonian signage order

Sen. Lisa Murkowski has joined a Democratic colleague in demanding answers about President Trump's executive order directing corrective signs outside the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, splitting from most Republicans who want the institution's exhibits overhauled.

Murkowski, an Alaska Republican who chairs the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, co-signed a bipartisan letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum with Sen. Jeff Merkley, the Oregon Democrat who serves as the panel's ranking member. The letter asks Burgum to explain the Department of the Interior's role in carrying out Executive Order 14416, titled "Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution," which Trump signed late last month.

The order directs Burgum to use existing authority to install "temporary exhibits or signage" on federally owned sidewalks, walkways, and public land near the museum. The stated purpose: correcting what the administration calls "inaccurate information presented in the Museum." Trump has accused the Smithsonian of teaching American history through an "inaccurate and hyper-partisan lens," Fox News Digital reported.

Murkowski is not buying the premise.

Murkowski defends the Smithsonian's 180-year record

In her letter to Burgum, Murkowski pushed back directly on the idea that the institution needs federal correction. She wrote:

"For the past 180 years, the Smithsonian Institution has been committed to sharing objective historical evidence through research and education, not political narratives."

The joint letter went further, framing the museum's work as fundamentally patriotic rather than partisan. Murkowski and Merkley wrote that the Smithsonian "has worked tirelessly to present a comprehensive narrative of our nation's amazing history, from its many triumphs to its trials," adding: "There is nothing more American than telling our story truthfully."

The senators also posed pointed procedural questions. They asked whether any precedent exists for the federal government using public land or taxpayer funds to post information that directly contradicts a nearby institution's own programming. They want to know who is compiling the content for the proposed signage, and what the timeline and cost will be.

None of those questions have been answered publicly. The Department of the Interior has not indicated whether it has responded to the letter.

House conservatives want to go further, and threaten funding

While Murkowski urges caution, several unnamed conservatives on the House Appropriations Committee are pushing in the opposite direction. They told Fox News Digital they want new guardrails placed on the Smithsonian's federal funding, conditions that would force the museum to change exhibits Republicans consider politically slanted or risk losing government dollars.

The financial leverage is real. Congress provides roughly $1 billion in taxpayer money to the Smithsonian every year. That funding stream gives lawmakers significant power over an institution that depends on it for operations, staffing, and preservation work across its network of museums and research centers.

Murkowski's willingness to break with her own party on this issue fits a pattern. She has repeatedly shown a willingness to chart an independent course from the White House, including her recent opposition to Todd Blanche's attorney general nomination, which left that confirmation hanging by a thread.

Republicans who back the executive order point to specific exhibits they consider problematic. One example cited in the dispute involves a display at the National Museum of American History that references Disney's "Steamboat Willie" in connection with "blackface minstrelsy." Critics have called exhibits like these "inherently political," "anti-white," and "woke."

The disagreement exposes a genuine tension within the GOP. Most Republicans appear comfortable using executive authority, and the threat of funding cuts, to push back against what they see as left-wing bias baked into taxpayer-funded cultural institutions. Murkowski sees something different: a 180-year-old institution that should remain insulated from political pressure, regardless of which party holds the White House.

Intra-party fractures keep widening

The Smithsonian fight is only the latest example of Republican lawmakers splitting from the administration or from their own leadership. GOP members recently divided over Defense Secretary Hegseth's removal of a top Army general in Europe, and those fault lines show no signs of closing.

The executive order itself raises a novel constitutional question that neither side has fully addressed. The Smithsonian is a federally funded institution, but it operates with a degree of curatorial independence. Placing government-produced signage on public sidewalks outside its doors, signage designed to contradict the museum's own exhibits, tests the boundary between congressional oversight of taxpayer spending and direct political interference in how a cultural institution presents history.

On the House side, the appetite for confrontation runs hotter. Conservatives there are not content with signs on sidewalks. They want the money itself conditioned on exhibit changes, a move that, if enacted through appropriations riders, would give elected officials direct say over what hangs on museum walls. That approach has its own risks in a caucus already prone to internal revolts over spending priorities.

Murkowski and Merkley's letter does not oppose the idea of accountability for the Smithsonian. It asks for basic information: who decided what goes on the signs, what it will cost, and whether anyone in government has ever tried anything like this before. Those are fair questions. The fact that they remain unanswered says more about the administration's approach than about the senators who asked them.

The broader GOP divide over how to handle institutions perceived as politically hostile is not going away. Internal White House tensions with congressional Republicans have already stalled parts of the conservative agenda, and fights over cultural institutions only add another front.

Taxpayers who fund the Smithsonian deserve exhibits that tell American history honestly, not through a partisan filter from the left or the right. The question is whether putting government-approved correction signs on public sidewalks is accountability or something else entirely.