President Donald Trump has ignited a fresh row over the Smithsonian Institution after personally calling for the dismissal of Kim Sajet, director of the National Portrait Gallery, via his Truth Social platform. In a post on 30 May, Trump accused Sajet of being a “highly partisan person” and a “strong supporter” of diversity programmes, which he had abolished from federal agencies by executive order in January. The move has been seen as part of a broader campaign to purge what Trump calls “woke” ideology from US cultural institutions.
Sajet, a Dutch-born art historian who has led the National Portrait Gallery for 12 years, said she was unsurprised by the attack. “As soon as you become a director at the Smithsonian, you are a public figure,” she told a journalist in autumn 2025. She noted that members of Congress had frequently questioned displays during her tenure, and that a disgruntled painter whose portrait of Trump she had rejected had pursued her through the courts for years. Despite the presidential rebuke, Sajet remained stoic, describing it as “another day in the office”.
The controversy comes after Trump issued an executive order on 27 March titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History”, which accused the Smithsonian of promoting “a divisive, race-centred ideology” that portrays American and Western values as “inherently harmful and oppressive”. The order assigned Lindsey Halligan, a Trump aide with no arts background, alongside Vice-President JD Vance, to remove this “improper ideology” from the institution. Critics see the move as an attempt to reframe US cultural narratives.
Earlier this year, Trump had declared himself chair of the Kennedy Center, vowing to end “woke” programming, and later renamed the centre after himself. The Smithsonian had pre-emptively shut down its diversity offices after Trump’s executive order, despite not being a federal agency. Sajet’s future remains uncertain, with Trump vowing to name her replacement shortly.
