On Thursday, the White House put out a list of Smithsonian exhibits and programs it says prove President Trump correct when he posted on Truth Social that the Smithsonian is “out of control.” On his Saturday show, MSNBC’s Ali Velshi strongly disagreed but omitted so many vitally important details that it is a wonder he managed to keep a straight face. Regular MSNBC viewers would have been totally unaware that Velshi was defending taxpayer-funded museum exhibits, articles, and programs about the history of LGBTQ skateboarding, among other things.
Velshi recalled, “Following that post, the White House spokesperson, Lindsay Halligan, went on Fox News to echo Trump's criticism, claiming that the Smithsonian has a quote, ‘overemphasis,’ end quote, on slavery. What she did not mention is that American slavery spanned 250 years if you count it conservatively, and that its legacy continues to shape our society today, both good and bad.
He then brought out the White House’s list, “Among them, artwork honoring children and pregnant women thrown overboard during the Middle Passage.”
Here’s the full context, ‘“works of speculative fiction that bring to life an immersive, feminist and sacred aquatopia inspired by the legend of Drexciya’ an ‘underwater kingdom populated by the children of pregnant women who had been thrown overboard or jumped into the ocean during the Middle Passage.’”
So, it’s not about objecting to covering slavery, it’s objecting to feminist mythmaking. It got worse from there. Velshi rolled on, “a series on how to be anti-racist.”
Again, here’s the full context:
The National Museum of African American History and Culture debuted a series to educate people on ‘a society that privileges white people and whiteness’ — defining so-called ‘white dominant culture’ as ‘ways white people and their traditions, attitudes, and ways of life have been normalized over time’ and portraying ‘the nuclear family,’ ‘work ethic,’ and ‘intellect’ as white qualities rooted in racism.
- The campaign featured content from hardcore woke activist Ibram X. Kendi.
Undeterred by facts, Velshi proceeded, “exhibits on LGBTQ+ history.”
Here, the White House pointed to this combination of words:
The American History Museum’s ‘LGBTQ+ History’ exhibit seeks to “understand evolving and overlapping identities such as lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgender, queer, transsexual, transvestite, mahu, homosexual, fluid, invert, urning, third sex, two sex, gender-bender, sapphist, hijra, friend of Dorothy, drag queen/king, and many other experiences,’ and includes articles on ‘LGBTQ+ inclusion and skateboarding’ and ‘the rise of drag ball culture in the 1920s.’
Next, Velshi went to bat for “programs highlighting Latinos and Latinas with disabilities, and the list goes on. In other words, efforts designed to educate, to reflect culture and to broaden our understanding of the American story are now being targeted for erasure, literally, by the White House.”
In the Latino disability section there was “content from ‘a disabled, plus-sized actress’ and an ‘ambulatory wheelchair user’ who ‘educates on their identity being Latinx, LGBTQ+, and disabled.’”
Velshi tried to go from claiming the Trump administration is waging war on the accurate history of slavery to defending ideologies that say hard work is a white value, that there is a third sex, and “Latinx” while trying to insist that LGBTQ skateboarding needs a place in the nation’s taxpayer-funded museums. Worse than that, he was not brave or honest enough to tell his viewers that is what he was doing.
Here is a transcript for the August 23 show:
MSNBC Velshi
8/23/2025
10:41 AM ET
ALI VELSHI: Donald Trump is escalating his attacks. I don't know if you want to call it escalating because we've always, kind of, known what this is about. But his attacks on the Smithsonian Institution and one specific crucial part of American history. On Truth Social this week, he wrote in part, quote, “The Smithsonian is out of control. Where everything discussed is how horrible our country is, how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”
Following that post, the White House spokesperson, Lindsay Halligan, went on Fox News to echo Trump's criticism, claiming that the Smithsonian has a quote, “overemphasis,” end quote, on slavery. What she did not mention is that American slavery spanned 250 years if you count it conservatively, and that its legacy continues to shape our society today, both good and bad.
Then on Thursday, the White House doubled down, or I guess, tripled down in a press release titled, quote, “President Trump is right about the Smithsonian,” the administration laid out a list of exhibits and programs that it deems problematic.
Among them, artwork honoring children and pregnant women thrown overboard during the Middle Passage, a series on how to be anti-racist, exhibits on LGBTQ+ history, programs highlighting Latinos and Latinas with disabilities, and the list goes on. In other words, efforts designed to educate, to reflect culture and to broaden our understanding of the American story are now being targeted for erasure, literally, by the White House.
