The Smithsonian Institution’s top official received a standing ovation after delivering a defiant address in response to President Donald Trump’s attacks.
Lonnie Bunch, the institution’s outgoing leader, said he loves the United States and the Smithsonian after Trump’s claims to the contrary, The Guardian reports.
“The notion that somehow this museum or any part of the Smithsonian is done by people who don’t love America, don’t care about America, is unbelievably wrong,” he said.
Bunch, 73, who founded the African American History Museum and became the Smithsonian’s first Black leader in 2019, is stepping down at the end of the year. He made his remarks defying the president during a gala celebrating the 10th anniversary of that very museum.
Trump has repeatedly taken aim at the Smithsonian, writing on Truth Social that it was “OUT OF CONTROL, where everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been – Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
This summer, the White House released a 162-page report titled “Saving America’s Story,” which bizarrely accused the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History of becoming an “instrument” for “a radical activist cohort dedicated to reframing the American story to serve its ideological ends.”
At the time, Bunch called out the report’s characterization in an internal email, telling staffers that “our work is driven by scholarship, accuracy, and an uncompromisinng commitment to tell the fullness of America’s story.”
In Bunch’s speech on Friday, he vouched for the museum’s future, calling it a “beacon of possibility” and a “place of resistance.”
“What I’m proudest of is that, though there’ll be pushes and attempts to try to do things, this museum will stand as long as there’s an America,” he said.
