Hello and welcome to this day, a history show from Radiotopia.

My name is Jody Avergan.

And we are technically in our late summer break on the show.

Nicole Hemmer and Kelly Carter Jackson are gearing up for a new school year.

But we had to break the emergency podcast glass a little bit to talk about the

latest developments in the Trump administration's efforts to reshape the way in which we tell

history, including just this week increased attacks on the Smithsonian and attempts to reframe

the story of slavery. So here we are and we are doing this for our newsletter

subscribers first. New newsletter subscribers, you are getting early access to this conversation.

And that is because we are really trying to make our newsletter the home for all the coverage

of America 250, the larger issue of how we do history in the Trump era and so forth. So here, as always, Nicole Hammer of Vanderbilt and Kelly Carter Jackson of Wellesley. Thanks for popping off your late summer break and having this very fun and stimulating conversation. No problem. Hello, Jody. Hey there. And to prove that we are in late summer, both Kelly and I, I'm not in New York City. I'm in the Hudson Valley. Both Kelly and I are dealing with lawnmowers and leaf blowers outside our window, which is a very late summer vibe. So there you go. It totally is. So look, shout out to our newsletter subscribers. I just want to say real quick. And anyone who's listening to this after we put it out into the world, you should consider subscribing to the newsletter since, as I said, that's where we're going to be doing a lot of more exclusive stuff there. And you are also, you know, being presented with a chance to help support our coverage of America 250 and so forth. And, you know, as we're going to discuss, the work of history could

use some funding and some support these days. So go ahead and become a subscriber to our newsletter

where we're doing America 250 watch in conversations like this. Anyway, I mentioned that the latest

development is this increased pressure on the Smithsonian. These remarks about slavery, we will

absolutely get into that. We have thoughts on that. But

let's lay out the larger context and the backstory. We've done an episode about this before.

But a lot of this, Nikki, goes back to this executive order. Everything in the Trump era goes back

to an executive order. But Trump did sign this executive order called Restoring Truth and

Sanity to American History.

The basic idea there is wanting to celebrate American greatness more in the way we tell history.

But, you know, kind of what is that sort of ambient context that leads us to this particular moment?

One of the things Trump has been obsessed with, especially, I would say especially since 2019, 2020, but I think it's

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