How Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch’s Lunch With Trump Actually Went Down

Trump wants to seize the Smithsonian — and he has a plan

President Donald Trump reportedly wants to seize the Smithsonian Institution, one of America’s most prestigious collection of museums, and to use them to whitewash the United States’ history on issues like slavery.“When President Trump summoned Lonnie Bunch, the secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, for lunch at the White House on August 28 of last year, Bunch’s advisers assumed that the end was near,” The Atlantic’s Clint Smith wrote on Mon…

How Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch’s Lunch With Trump Actually Went Down

The Smithsonian Institution, and its Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, have been under pressure for well over a year, with President Donald Trump and his administration trying a variety of tactics to compel the Institution to change its framing or approach to US History. That campaign reached its highest flashpoint last summer when Bunch and the president sat for a two-and-a-half hour lunch over their differing views on museum curation. Now, in a…