Coming from the leader of almost any other major museum, the comments made around the celebration of America’s 250th anniversary by Lonnie G. Bunch III, the head of the Smithsonian Institution, would have seemed almost self-evident truths.

The Smithsonian’s mission, Mr. Bunch told CNN last week, is to “ give you questions and answers that will make you understand the complexity of who we are as a nation” using “the best nonpartisan scholarship we have.” On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” he said the institution was like the glue that holds the nation together. “Red states, blue states — whatever your politics, you come to the Smithsonian,” he said.

But after more than a year of intense pressure from President Trump and his allies over what they term “improper ideology” in the Smithsonian’s presentation of American history and culture, Mr. Bunch’s comments amounted to a public glimpse into a far less diplomatic, behind-the-scenes battle for control of the institution.

The inside story of the fight for control of the Smithsonian underscores how Mr. Trump has tried, with varying degrees of success, to impose his own view of American history, erase “wokeness,” influence which artists are worthy of exhibits and oust top leaders of the institution.

Mr. Bunch spent much of the past year seeking to fend off or mitigate escalating demands from the administration to address what a White House report, issued on Saturday amid the July 4 festivities, characterized as a drive that “has moved the museum’s mission away from straightforward historical education and scholarship toward an extreme political activism that seeks to transform our country.”

The blistering report focused on the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. It followed a March 2025 executive order from Mr. Trump, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”

Mr. Bunch, the first Black secretary of the Smithsonian, has largely avoided engaging publicly with Mr. Trump’s criticisms. Without mentioning the president, he told CNN on Friday: “It scares me when people aren’t brave enough to face their history. And in some ways you have to face it anyway.”

Vince Haley, the director of the White House’s domestic policy council, said that “the least we owe our founding fathers is an honest and inspiring account of who they were, what they did and what they built.” The Smithsonian declined to comment.

This account of the backstage battle is drawn from reporting for the book “Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump,” and is based on documents and interviews with a wide range of people with knowledge of the events, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity.

                                                                                                                                                                 Right: Mr. Bunch

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