WTW141: The Anti-Woke Crusade Against Knowing Things Continues

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:42 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Where There's Woke. I'm Thomas. That over there is the brains and apparently the beauty of the operation. If you listen to Godawful Movies, you apparently have the biggest fan in the world, YouTuber Viced Rhino, just giving you all kinds of shoutouts, yeah.

0:00:47 Lydia: Oh, really? Oh, that's so nice.

0:00:56 Thomas: There was crosstalks. I actually couldn't tell what was said and it's not clear.

0:00:59 Lydia: You didn't ask Noah for the audio so you could like isolate it, like enhance, enhance.

0:01:02 Thomas: You're the brains? I think he was gonna say, I think it was saying you were the brains of the Operation I Was a Pretty Face, which makes sense. But then Eli reacted like he made a comment about your looks. So I was like, oh, did he say? I kind of think that's what it is.

0:01:10 Lydia: Oh, or maybe just Eli misheard. Yeah.

0:01:21 Thomas: Either way, Lydia is not a fan of the show. So she she has no idea. But I heard that shout out. And I think Vice trying to listen to the show or said he has. So a shout out for a shoutout. You know, he had no idea if we were going to listen to that show. And so the same goes here.

0:01:37 Thomas: So nice of you. Really cool stuff. But how's it going?

0:01:30 Lydia: Cool. Thanks, bud. Yeah, so nice doing okay. It's another week. So we got another attack on, you know, American cultural institutions.

0:01:46 Thomas: Do you mean in the ironic sense or in the real sense?

0:01:50 Lydia: Oh it's real.

0:01:50 Thomas: Okay, I wasn't sure if you're doing the like, yeah, the woke are taking our blank.

0:01:53 Lydia: No, unfortunately, this is the woke have already infiltrated something, so let's tear it down. Yeah. Those are our two styles of stories on this show.

0:01:58 Thomas: Sure. Woke meaning whatever the status quo previously was somehow was woke.

0:02:04 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Or any sense of justice, you know, for historical misdeeds or anything. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah so today I want to talk about the focus on the Smithsonian and the Trump administration like direct from the White House trying to take over and control what is in the the Smithsonian network.

0:02:25 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Wait, didn't we do this before?

0:02:27 Lydia: Before, it just existed as an executive order. Now, it's getting hotter. The heat has increased.

0:02:32 Thomas: He's taken some dinosaurs.

0:02:37 Lydia: We have congressional hearings happening about this now. We have a report from the Heritage Foundation. We have a rapport from the White House. We have the Democrats responding in their own report. There's a lot of stuff going on. And it came to a head at a congressional hearing earlier this week, a woman named Amphia Hardeg, who is the director of the National Museum of American History with the Smithsonian. And she was called upon to attend this congressional hearing and was asked as part of this hearing whether Mickey Mouse is racist. So this is what this is someone who was voted into office. Right. And like, yeah, we've

0:03:14 Thomas: Mickey Mouse? Yeah, man. I can't believe he won that election. I thought Donald was going to be the shoo -in, but no, Mickey did it.

0:03:22 Lydia: Talked about this before. The hearings always have some amount of, like, performance to them. It kind of is like performance art in some ways.

0:03:26 Thomas: Yeah. So I want to know, were they asking if Mickey Mouse, like, was personally racist? Like, hey, you spent a lot of time with that mouse. It's not a mouse say then. We're behind closed doors.

0:03:35 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. We'll play the clip. Specifically, but what I want to focus on is, like, this is someone who was elected to this position, and when given the opportunity to investigate this potential ideological hold that the competing side, I guess, has taken with this supposed-to-be politically unbiased institution, instead of asking, like, a serious question about that, it was literally, "Is Mickey Mouse racist?"

0:03:39 Thomas: Okay.

0:03:59 Thomas: So, yeah, what institution? Mickey Mouse's Playhouse?

0:04:02 Lydia: Just the Smithsonian.

0:04:02 Thomas: Is Mickey Mouse part of the Smithsonian? I don't understand what's happening here. Oh, okay.

0:04:07 Lydia: They do have an exhibit that talks about the interpretation of like early Mickey Mouse imagery. And, you know, because the Smithsonian is not a single museum. It's a network of museums and institutions. Right. So they have and like research centers and education. Yeah.

0:04:23 Thomas: It's got Marvel. It owns everything, that mouse, somehow. Star Wars.

0:04:27 Lydia: Yeah, really. And they have a lot of lawyers. So be careful what what we say about the mouse on the podcast. And that's not the only ridiculous question that was being asked in these hearings. I have lots of clips for us to play. There were essentially two hearings. The Tuesday hearing's going to be the one that we focused on. And it was two different House committees, Tuesday and Wednesday. And, you know, I think it was it was three hours long, I think, for the first hearing.

The White House report is 162 pages long, and we'll talk a little bit more about that, too. But we have someone, an American historian, supposed to be, you You know, like one of the premier historians in our country, she was appointed to this position as director of the National Museum of American History. She's been serving in this role for seven years, I think. First female director, you know, this is a big deal for her.

And this is how she's spending her Tuesday and Wednesday, being asked about things like Mickey Mouse being racist. Is RuPaul transgender? Why don't you care more about aborted fetuses? It's insane what has happened in this entire farce of a congressional hearing.

0:04:31 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:05:34 Thomas: So for a moment, it was like Google, like, are there any local sandwich spots near me right now? Like you could just search that man.

0:05:39 Lydia: Almost. Almost. You know, this isn't the first time that the government has been uncomfortably invested in the version of American history that they want to tell at the Smithsonian in particular. So I have a couple moments in time that we'll talk about, that we will visit. And then, you know, everybody's favorite, Nazi Germany. We'll talk a little bit about that, too, because when you talk about the Trump administration, I'm just saying we're going to dabble a little little bit in some history direct in, uh, America and the Smithsonian, but also what happens when we start to infiltrate cultural institutions, and we have examples of that in other countries as well. Yeah.

0:06:00 Thomas: What the fuck? You're not good at transitions. You got to work on it.

0:06:18 Thomas: All right. Well, I can't wait to find out about this mouse. I'm tired of that asshole getting away with his racism for so long.

0:06:24 Lydia: It's too much. Somebody needs to hold that guy

0:06:26 Thomas: Gotta be stopped. Mickey Mouse doesn't have any, like, natural enemies, does he? There's some cartoon characters where they create them in, like, like, enemy pairs, you know, like The, you get your Sylvester or something, whatever, uh

0:06:27 Lydia: Accountable. Yeah. Yeah, the closest would be like Pete. Pete's always sort of the, the bad guy against Mickey Mouse.

0:06:41 Thomas: Well, That's more for the dog one, right? They're Goofy.

0:06:45 Lydia: For Goofy, but no, but Pete is always, he's always cast as the villain. They do, like, The Prince and the Pauper, and Pete is always the bad guy there, you know. Yeah.

0:06:48 Thomas: Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. Okay. All right. I see, you know what, I stand corrected. That was important that we cleared that up. All Right. Well, more incredibly important conversations like that after the ad break. patreon.com/where there's woke, avoid the ads. They're getting worse than ever. Boy, they suck. Nothing we can do about those. They're, uh, we're gonna, we'll hold congressional hearings, but I don't know if it's gonna do anything. But you can avoid them and support the show at the same time. patreon.com. Social media as well.

0:06:56 Lydia: But I wouldn't say he's like a natural predator, like he's not gonna eat Mickey Mouse. Yeah. Okay.

0:07:23 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:07:23 Lydia: So you mentioned this in the pre-show here as we introduced it. Well, yes, I will say what you mentioned, and you'll be like, yes, I did mention that, hopefully you remember, um, it was just a few minutes ago, but you mentioned before, like, oh yeah. Yeah. Like, there was a moment of recollection about the Smithsonian. And haven't we talked about this before? Well, we did. Because if we go back about a year, or I guess over a year now, March 2025, Trump signs an executive order. So this is, you know, pretty early in the term. And he called it restoring truth and sanity. Well, I guess he didn't call it. Somebody on his team called it Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. And that it was directing, quote, quote, improper, divisive or anti-American ideology be removed from the Smithsonian and that J.D. Vance, Vice President, because he sits on the Board of Regents for the Smithsonian, would be in charge of carrying it out, evaluating every single piece in the Smithsonian, whether or not it is aligned with the president's vision of what it means to

0:07:40 Thomas: I Did. Ah.

0:08:22 Thomas: Yes. Yeah.

0:08:22 Lydia: Be an American. Crazy. It does not say what is anti - American. What counts there? Clearly, though, So yeah, clearly, though, the focus on anything related to race and gender, they're going to be tackling. It did name some specific exhibits that it didn't like. So one, again, focused on race, the shape of power, stories of race and American sculpture. And then they were planning an exhibit.

0:08:30 Thomas: And there's no way to guess.

0:08:48 Thomas: And the iguana exhibit, it didn't have enough real iguana. I don't want to be funny, they just picked a random them.

0:08:54 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Just someone like really, really invested in iguanas, an iguana expert. They didn't get it right. But then there was also a planned exhibit at the American Women's History Museum that would include transgender athletes. And obviously, that is not okay if you are part of the Trump administration. The Congressional Black Caucus responded at the time of the executive order, and we're calling this approach whitewashing our nation's history, you know, because they have a museum that they really, it is. And again, I mentioned the Smithsonian's a network of museums, and one of them is the National Museum of African American History and Culture. And so this is another museum that would be under J .D. Vance's control to evaluate every single item and whether or not it's appropriate.

0:08:58 Thomas: Oh yeah.

0:09:22 Thomas: Cause it is. Yeah.

0:09:36 Thomas: Under JD Vance's control. What a boy. Imagine telling someone from any other time that nothing should be under his control. Least of all a museum.

0:09:39 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Some of like the nation's most important museums. So that's all what's happening in the spring. Go into the summer. We're looking at August 2025. The White House sends a formal letter to the Smithsonian demanding documentation. They want to know everything about current and future exhibition content, all the planning that would be happening for the 250th anniversary, anniversary, which we talked about on the show, all their educational materials that they make available. They wanted an index of the entire permanent collection from the top eight museums in the Smithsonian Institute. And around the same time, Trump obviously goes on Truth Social and starts doing his talking points there as well. He says the museums are, quote, out of control in all caps and that they dwell on, quote. How bad slavery was and that he told his lawyers to run the same playbook against the Smithsonian that they used against Harvard and Columbia. Those institutions gave in a lot to the Trump administration.

0:10:06 Thomas: Where'd you get all those bones?

0:10:35 Thomas: Oh yeah,

0:10:46 Lydia: So they found success there and they said, we're going to do the exact same thing to the Smithsonian. Buckle up, guys.

0:10:50 Thomas: I just love how much Trump makes things hard for himself. He pulls it off a lot, but the sell of like, Hey, you know, what's out of control these days, list your top top 1000 things that that could be. Museums. What? Nobody even goes to them, unfortunately. I don't know what you're talking about.

0:11:01 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. They're exaggerating how bad slavery was and that's out of control. Get it together. So then in the winter, just before Christmas time, the White House posts a letter and they had sent it the day before to the Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch from, yeah, from domestic policy director Vince Haley. And we haven't talked about him before. And also OMB director Russ Vogt, who we have talked about before.

0:11:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:21 Thomas: Love that name.

0:11:30 Lydia: So very quickly, Vince Haney, he worked on both of Trump's campaigns. He's a failed politician. He wasn't elected to office, even though he tried. So then he started working for the Trump campaigns.

0:11:41 Thomas: So sorry to issue corrections, but Trump has had three campaigns.

0:11:44 Lydia: Oh, sorry. Yes. Two successful campaigns. I guess.

0:11:48 Thomas: Yeah, maybe not. Probably not the first one.

0:11:48 Lydia: Yeah, I don't know if he worked on that. I'm sure he worked on the third. No, he worked on the first one.

0:11:50 Thomas: Oh, OK. Oh gotcha. OK.

0:11:52 Lydia: And in the first administration, he worked, keep this in mind, because we'll be talking about the content coming out from under this guy. He worked under Stephen Miller at the time for the first Trump administration. And then he became a main speechwriter for his 2024 campaign and then was appointed director of the United States Domestic Policy Council. He is also going to be in charge of of the project for the Memorial Circle Arch, the stupid Arc de Triomphe that Trump is trying to do here that we had the mock -up at the 250th thing. Oh, that would be good. Yeah. But this guy's going to be in charge of that project as well. So we'll see how it goes.

0:12:21 Thomas: Yeah I hope he does Arc de Triomphe or something. That'd be so funny.

0:12:33 Thomas: What was the the circle part of that? I didn't recognize.

0:12:35 Lydia: Yeah, it's Memorial Circle.

0:12:35 Thomas: That memorials, oh, is that the name of, like, the little place or something?

0:12:40 Lydia: Yes, it's the traffic circle on Memorial Drive. Yeah?

0:12:41 Thomas: Ah, gotcha.

0:12:43 Lydia: So this is the guy who's in charge of this organization that's going to be going after the Smithsonian, basically. And this letter from the two of them, from Haley and Vogt, says, we're done waiting for you guys to answer our letter from August. Now you have a deadline. It's January 13th, 2026. And the Smithsonian, according to some reporting, had been sort of stalling. They asked for a lot. And so I don't know. I'm not in the thick of this. I don'T know exactly how much they were sending. I DON'T think it was like the Epstein files.

0:13:16 Thomas: Okay, yeah.

0:13:16 Lydia: And SO I DONT really want to hear about it. But apparently, Apparently, they had not sent everything over yet. The White House got pissed about it. So they now have a deadline for everything to be in by January 13th.

0:13:26 Thomas: They really should do that. Oh, we'll take it just as seriously as you did the Epstein files. What's that? There's files that you want that are not being produced the way you think they should be? Weird.

0:13:36 Lydia: And so then based on everything that the Smithsonian sent over at that point in time in January, we get a report out of the White House titled Saving America's Story. It's 162 pages, and it's specifically about the National Museum of American History, history, which is why this specific museum director is called in to testify. Let me read a little bit from here. The little tagline is, how ideological capture at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History erases our heritage. I'm going to scroll down here to something that was actually called out when the Democrats issued a rebuttal to this, which ist incredible, and we'll talk about that as well, too, just from this conclusion section.

The serious concerns raised in this report are not about a few exhibits or a few controversial labels. They concern whether America's premier history museum still presents America as a coherent nation and heritage worth teaching with gratitude and honesty. The museum can broaden the story without dissolving the story. It can and should acknowledge slavery, injustice, mistreatment of Native peoples, and other grave wrongs without encouraging citizens to view their country mainly through suspicion, resentment, resentment, and division. But that is not what the

0:13:50 Thomas: Uh, gratitude.

0:14:39 Thomas: Fucking snowflakes.

0:14:52 Lydia: National Museum of American History is doing. As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian's flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads, quote, warning, the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don't want you to love your country. This isn't a White House report. Official report. This is crazy.

0:15:13 Thomas: You fucking snowflakes. How I cannot, it never gets old that they were the party of calling us snowflakes. You can't, they were, they really mean to the country. The people from 200 years ago, they're mean about it. They, and the examples they point to is just like, they just said what happened really. Nothing else is happening There's not, like, even the wokest of woke, they don't waste their time with, like, trying to personally judge, like, historical care. It's stupid, nobody cares. That's not how it works. It's just like, if you tell the honest history, then you obviously would form probably an opinion about some people and some things. Oh my god, you fucking boring ass idiots. Yeah.

0:15:25 Lydia: Mm hmm. Yeah. Mm hmm, yeah. Yeah,

0:16:24 Thomas: Like, it's probably not even about anything if they. It's like, yeah, we know. George Washington. Probably they want to cover stuff that's, like, more interesting.

0:16:29 Lydia: It's also not accurate.

0:16:37 Thomas: He didn't cross the Delaware? Yeah.

0:16:37 Lydia: So the Democrats, yeah, the Democrats respond to this with their own, I guess this is a memo. And this is called the White House campaign to seize control of the Smithsonian and rewrite American history. This is issued by ranking member Joseph D. Morrell out of New York from the Committee on House Administration.

0:16:56 Thomas: Oh, okay. I was like, ranking member from the committee on shit that doesn't fucking matter?

0:16:58 Lydia: So yeah, yeah. Yeah. And they say in their piece, Saving America's Story was produced by the White House Domestic Policy Council, not by historians, museum professionals, or any entity with curatorial expertise or statutory responsibility for the Smithsonian. As the American Historical Association and 36 allied scholarly organizations explained in response to Executive Order 14253, the one we mentioned, the premise of the Whitehouse effort, quote, quote, egregiously misrepresents the work of the Smithsonian Institution and completely misconstrues the nature of historical work, whose goal is, quote, neither criticism nor celebration. It is to understand, to increase our knowledge of the past in ways that can help Americans to shape the future. Notably, across 162 pages of accusations, the report contains no recommendations.

It proposes no specific reform or action. Its conclusion simply restates the executive order, which calls on the vice president to, quote. Remove improper ideology And OMB to, quote, prohibit expenditure on exhibits or programs that degrade shared American values, divide Americans based on race or promote programs or ideologies inconsistent with federal law and policy. The vice president has no power outside of his status as one 17th of the Board of Regents to effectuate policy at the Smithsonian.

Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States has consistently held that the executive branch cannot withhold or impound funds that Congress has duly appropriated and directed to be spent based on policy disagreements. And then they cite, indeed, the only new proposal, in quotes, apparently made in earnest, is that the Smithsonian place a warning sign at every entrance

0:17:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:18:28 Thomas: So funny.

0:18:28 Lydia: To NMAH reading, warning, yada, yadda, yedda. That is not the language of a serious organizational review. And then, they go on to say the report is contradicted by both the exhibits and itself, and they cite all of the different things there.

0:18:40 Thomas: They should call their bluff and actually put up those signs. Like, for real. Wouldn't that be funny?

0:18:43 Lydia: Oh, yeah, might as well, might als well. Wow. And that it inherently is biased. And so it's concerned about ideological capture at the Smithsonian is all underdone because the entity that's putting this together is biased just in the other direction. It's just, you know, just silly. All right. So now we have this little back and forth that's happening between the White House and the Democrats setting up for the hearing. Before we get to the hearing, here's a couple more things that the Whitehouse report was concerned about. I mentioned, you know, not enough George Washington.

0:19:16 Thomas: Boo. Zero stars. Not enough George Washington, he's

0:19:16 Lydia: The museum has, they've had a permanent exhibit called the American Presidency. So I'm pretty sure George Washington's probably in there. They are really concerned about a butterfly exhibit. So there's monarch butterfly wings that are in an exhibit.

0:19:23 Thomas: Probably in there. Yeah, they probably got to him. I'd say, okay, thank you. I've been dying for there to be somebody in charge of, I want to ask this again, are there dinosaurs in these fucking things? I keep forgetting, I don't know what the Smithsonian is, I'm an idiot, you need to tell me. There should be dinosaurs, because you know how the, like, law works too, like with some of this stuff, it would be so funny, I mean, in a bad way, but they're probably subject to some bullshit that's like, okay, now the, the pre-Cambrian area here, it's got to reflect American values, it's gotta, the Triassic period is lagging, I'll say, it's like, Jurassic doing great, that's got a lot of George Washington-inspired

0:19:38 Lydia: Exhibit Yeah, so there, there isn't, yeah, yeah

0:20:09 Thomas: Stuff, you know, like, are they gonna have to, like, go along with it, you know? Yeah.

0:20:12 Lydia: Those dinosaurs crossing the Delaware, you know, it's an homage to George Washington, we really appreciate

0:20:15 Thomas: Their dinosaurs have, like, the powdered wigs or something.

0:20:20 Lydia: That, yeah, exactly, that's what I was thinking too, I could have totally picture that. Um, there is a National Museum of Natural History, so I imagine there's stuff there, but remember the report and the hearing is specific to the National Museum of American History, so these monarch butterfly wings are for an exhibit that is meant to symbolize Dreamers for you know, DACA, and the report decides that no, those monarch butterfly wings for Dreamers are actually tied to a Vote T-shirt from 1970s because it also has a butterfly on it, so that the museum is quote secretly implying that illegal aliens should be given the right to vote. Yeah, the shirt is from the 70s, DACA didn't exist yet, there's no Dreamer connection, that doesn't make any sense at all. And, I mean, butterflies were freaking everywhere in the 70s. What are you talking about? There was a common print that you would see.

0:20:29 Thomas: Yeah, no, boo, okay. Well, can't do that.

0:20:56 Thomas: You should vote. Oh my god, are you kidding me? Oh, wow.

0:21:12 Thomas: Yeah, you don't see them anymore. Oh, oh yeah, they, like, designs. Okay.

0:21:16 Lydia: Yeah, for designs, yeah. They also complain about the color scheme of the museum. They say that the branding uses, quote, white squiggly lines with red and blue backgrounds instead of the Liberty Bell, the Statue of Liberty, a bald eagle, or the flag.

0:21:25 Thomas: Yeah. Oh my god, if I were evil, I would be, God, I would, I would do so well, I do so all because imagine getting to be a part of this dumb shit. Imagine if you got to do your job, oh, I love a good, a do-nothing job. You know, like imagine, okay, you guys, there's guys, the color scheme, not enough red and white and blue, not enough, not if Eagles, not of Liberty belt. Like, it's just so dumb. It's so easy. Yeah. It'S like, there'S no Eagles in this butterfly exhibit.

0:21:31 Lydia: Yeah. Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Yeah. Yeah. It's like 50 % more. More eagles, yeah. Yeah, because it's butterflies.

0:21:59 Thomas: Like, yeah, yeah. Now I think it's because of the illegals.

0:22:05 Lydia: They also complained about the museum asking too many questions in a way that they didn't like. So there's an American Democracy exhibit that has a placard up that asks visitors, how should Americans remember their revolution and the founding of the nation? And the report decides that because it is an open -ended prompt, prompt. And museums do this all the time. I've seen this at like the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

0:22:25 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it's literally the thing you do because you're not trying to, like, spoon feed a narrative.

0:22:31 Lydia: No, you're trying to engage your visitors. You're trying to get them to think about what they're looking at, what they're observing, what they're absorbing.

0:22:36 Thomas: Yeah, no, obviously there's, there's ideology that goes into that somewhat. There's no reason to denying it. Like, the thing you decide to pose a question about is obviously, like, somewhat loaded. But also, who gives a fuck? Can't you handle a question, you fucking snowflakes? God!

0:22:48 Lydia: Yeah. They decided that because they have this open-ended prompt that the museum itself doesn't know what to think about the revolution and the founding of the nation.

0:22:57 Thomas: Uh oh, they're, and they're asked, they're like, "God, guys, we don't like a fuck, like we got in and charge this museum and they never asked us if we, please please please, just help."

0:23:00 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, literally, literally that they're outsourcing the narrative of the the nation. Joe from Indiana, so

0:23:13 Thomas: I don't want to lose this job. Tell me what I should think about the revolution."

0:23:19 Lydia: Crazy.

0:23:19 Thomas: Oh, it's so good. Oh man, you know, I'm gonna give him credit for that one because I, I said I talk a big talk, I wouldn't have come up with that, that's too stupid, I can't. Wow, good job. You know, if that is just a cynical piece of shit do nothing, like trying to get away with it, do nothing job. You know, I'll give him a few points for that.

0:23:25 Lydia: Yep. Yep. Yeah, okay. So are you ready for the hearing? You're ready to see how this can get even more off the rails? All right, I would like us to start with the purpose of this hearing today directly from them.

0:23:42 Thomas: Hmm. Okay.

0:23:50 Clip: American institution fell victim to ideological capture and how to rescue it.

0:23:54 Thomas: Oh, it's Mr. Bird shit.

0:23:56 Clip: The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History was opened in 1964 to instill in Americans and foreign visitors alike an appreciation of this nation's distinctive heritage and to celebrate its singular story as a beacon of freedom and opportunity.

0:24:11 Thomas: Is that really?

0:24:12 Clip: But the museum has strayed, I believe, from the original purpose for which it exists and receives federal taxpayer support. I feel like it has become infected by a woke ideology that has seeped into public displays,

0:24:24 Thomas: Hey man. Yeah. Look, I get it. Like you're a fucking low effort, anti -woke bullshitter, but like, can you even try to talk? Like you give a shit about your fucking job, dude. You're one of the 430,

0:24:30 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, you're chair of this committee, Bitty.

0:24:36 Thomas: 538. What is it? However many house members there is a 538? I forget. That's something. And you can't like, Oh,

0:24:43 Lydia: 438. Because isn't 538 the total? Yeah, yeah.

0:24:46 Thomas: Total with the, yeah, you're probably right, that's why I went back and forth. It's not just this accent, which plenty of intelligent people also have, that accent, of course, but it's like just the lack of ever, it's like you just woke up. Yeah, come on, man, give me some public

0:24:52 Lydia: High schoolers do a better job when they do popcorn reading. Yeah.

0:25:04 Clip: Educational materials, and planning documents. The American story is the birth and growth of a great nation founded on powerful ideals on which we aim to fully achieve, but in the museum's current telling, history is just an ongoing power struggle between oppressors and the oppressed. Only the oppressed are celebrated, especially illegal immigrants.

0:25:10 Thomas: Speaking You're not even here.

0:25:14 Lydia: Yeah,

0:25:23 Clip: The museum promotes educational curricula that recommends teachers to avoid using the

0:25:23 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, they're, you know what? They're doing great right now, they're so celebrated.

0:25:25 Lydia: I

0:25:28 Clip: Terms illegal alien and illegal immigrant, while instructing them how to use the terms gender fluidity and gender non-conforming. It hosts staff discussion groups on how museums can be used to foster social action against white privilege and hetero patriarchy. A museum display even accuses Mickey Mouse

0:25:29 Thomas: Fuck you, God. What does this have to do with each other?

0:25:47 Lydia: Should have practiced more, my guy.

0:25:47 Thomas: Yeah, I was gonna say you didn't practice your speech.

0:25:49 Clip: Of having racist origins. The many examples of politicization of the museum are well documented in the comprehensive report the White House

0:25:56 Thomas: I'm giving him a C minus.

0:25:58 Lydia: I

0:25:58 Clip: House Domestic Policy Council recently issued on July 4th, the nation's 250th anniversary.

0:26:04 Thomas: No, I hadn't heard.

0:26:05 Clip: The report makes clear that the museum's woke exhibits and materials reflect a broader vision held by the museum leadership, particularly its director, Dr. Aletha Hartig, who is here Dr. Hartig proudly takes credit for changing the museum mission statement, which no longer uses the term American history or refers to the infinite richness of that history. The museum is now guided by an interpretive plan that ensures all topics focus on the We want to guess what they are? Race and identity, gender and sexuality, environmental change, immigration and migrations, and economic inequality top the list. Also a center for restorative justice at the museum, created under Dr. Hartig's watch, hosted today decolonization working group to investigate historical harms that result in ongoing systematic oppression. To remove any doubt about her intentions, Dr. Hartig, in her own words, states that she views history as a prime tool of social justice. Thank you for the opportunity to testify.

0:27:10 Lydia: Want to get to Hartig's response to this. You know, every congressional witness for this gets to share testimony as they start. We'll play a little bit from that. And very quickly, while you're pulling that up, just so everybody knows. The witnesses that were called to this were Anthea Hardig, who, as I mentioned, is the director for the National Museum of American History. That's who they want to grill. And then the other ones that the majority called are Mike Gonzalez, the guy who wrote the Heritage Foundation's report about how the Smithsonian is being captured by the woke, basically. Okay, very cool. Dr. Matthew Spaldig, the professor out of Hillsdale College. You might recognize that name if you're an avid WTW listener. Thomas is not, so he won't recognize anything. He is on the board for New College of Florida, so that's a common, yeah, someone we talk about.

0:27:24 Thomas: That okay?

0:27:40 Thomas: I'm Not, yeah, I don't care for that show. It's not enough. Lydia, oh no, actually, so I did, that did seem familiar to me. Do you know why? Um, Because, yeah, the sports brand.

0:28:02 Lydia: Why? Because of The volleyball, what is that? Yeah, yeah.

0:28:07 Thomas: Spalding. So I kept thinking, like, is that Spalting? No.

0:28:10 Lydia: Is he of Spalding, like sports ball fortune?

0:28:11 Thomas: It's, you're saying Spaldig?

0:28:13 Lydia: No, Spalting.

0:28:13 Thomas: Aren't you, oh, I thought you just said

0:28:17 Lydia: I don't think I did, I'll have to check when I edit.

0:28:17 Thomas: Spaldic, pretty sure you did it. Is Spalming his name? Oh well, it could be. Yeah, I think Spalning is, uh, mainly basketballs, but I'm sure, sure they do plenty of stuff too.

0:28:20 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, interesting. Okay, and then there's, you know, the minority witness that's called is a professor of history out of Yale University.

0:28:33 Thomas: Yeah, and you know, there's a minority witnesses, somebody knows fucking everything about everything ever invented, but we got a fucking clown, a magician, a juggler, and a fucking, god, it's so

0:28:37 Lydia: Yep. Yep, yep. It is depressing. All right. And with that, let's turn to Dr. Hartig.

0:28:50 Clip: Today I know this committee has questions about the National Museum of American History and I

0:28:51 Thomas: Depressing. Wait, she's white? Fuck this.

0:28:56 Clip: Welcome the chance to answer them. As an historian, I have spent my career studying, teaching, and preserving the history of the United States. My family has served this nation since the Revolutionary War and I was raised with a deep sense of obligation to it and the democratic ideals that the country asks each generation to build and to uphold. Since 2019, I I have been honored to serve as the Elizabeth McMillan Director of your National Museum of American History, home of the Star-Spangled Banner. It is a true honor to serve alongside my devoted fellow public servants who staff the museum, and I am immensely proud of our work. Congress created the Smithsonian Institution in 1846 with an aspirational mission of diffusion and knowledge. Can you imagine the increase in diffusion of knowledge? It is an independent trust instrumentality outside the executive branch of government and is governed by a board of regents that includes all three branches of government and nine citizen regents appointed by a joint resolution of Congress. The Smithsonian takes the concerns raised in the White House Domestic Policy Council's and as we continue to fact-check the report we unwaveringly attest that it

0:29:12 Thomas: Which side?

0:29:13 Lydia: But you

0:30:16 Thomas: Though, why? Yeah.

0:30:16 Lydia: Shouldn't have to. Yeah. Fact check the report.

0:30:22 Clip: Does not fairly or accurately characterize the full body of work at the museum. There is always room for improvement, but I also know the beauty and the inspiration and the expertise that lies in our collections, our exhibits, and our programming when a family walks through the doors of the

0:30:24 Thomas: Anything.

0:30:26 Lydia: Yeah, yeah,

0:30:40 Thomas: You get a weird vibe from this lady, not gonna lie. Yeah.

0:30:43 Lydia: That's fair.

0:30:44 Clip: Museum free of charge, as two million people did last year. They find the desk on which Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, Horatio Greenauer's magnificent statue of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln's top hat from the night he was assassinated, the Greensboro lunch counter, the gowns of the first ladies, and the stories of Americans in uniform. They find the inventions that changed the world and the ordinary Americans who built it. I have watched 10-year-olds with their families stand in front of the Star-Spangled Banner with their hands over their hearts.

0:31:00 Thomas: Fuck this place.

0:31:22 Thomas: This place sounds dorky. Fuck this place.

0:31:23 Clip: That is the National Museum of American History at its most powerful, patriotism, not instructed but inspired. By the Smithsonian Standards of Scholarship,

0:31:28 Thomas: They made it sound so much cooler than it was. Don't worry, we're building plenty of little fascists, tomorrow's little Hitlers. We're, don't worry, we're doing a great job.

0:31:41 Lydia: So yeah,

0:31:44 Clip: Accuracy, independence and non-partisanship. The museum does not take sides in America's political debates. We preserve and document the evidence of American life in all of its breadth so that the public can encounter the past and draw their own conclusions. I'm wondering, have you ever

0:32:03 Thomas: Hmm.

0:32:04 Lydia: So I get what you're saying. Like, I'm not not totally sure. I think she's kind Kind of in a tough position. Yeah.

0:32:08 Thomas: Yeah, she might be nervous or like, there's, she has a weird, like, demeanor. I mean, maybe you'd have to see it too, but she's sort of like, she's kind of smiling, like in a halfway, like, she almost looks high. Maybe she had to take something, who knows. I would, if I had to speak in front of, you know,

0:32:22 Lydia: Yeah, I think it's also, I want to be fair to, I don't know how harshly we would judge a man who was like kind of handling it the same way. I don't know.

0:32:29 Thomas: I think I probably would. I just judged a man five seconds ago for

0:32:34 Lydia: That's true. That' s true. Fair enough. But the Smithsonian also gets two thirds of its funding from the federal government. So I think there's, you know, like you're trying to preserve that relationship to not that they can take away funding that you currently have right now. But if things get testy, there is potentially risk for up to two thirds of your funding just being obliterated.

0:32:43 Thomas: Yeah.

0:32:56 Thomas: Well, that and we're even buying into the premise that these are a bunch of wokest, like, I don't even know that they are, that's, yes, these might be better historians or whatever than, like, Trump has to offer, but I don't know that that necessarily means they're all that woke at all. I don't know, who knows.

0:33:06 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah. So

0:33:18 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:33:18 Lydia: At the top of the hearing, they actually played a mashup of her giving land acknowledgements at different events and stuff. And so they hated that, obviously. And so Burchett follows it up with this line of questioning for her.

0:33:23 Thomas: No, okay, all right. Oh boy, I can't wait.

0:33:36 Clip: Planned on dating any of your personal property or property of the Smithsonian to any of these tribes I don't believe that's pertinent to the conversation, sir. Well, I mean, you, you, you say that every time you open your, um, your meetings, apparently, and I was just curious of that Acknowledgement, if that was something you were, you were planning on doing, should the American

0:33:44 Thomas: What? What? Uh.

0:33:45 Lydia: Yeah, what? All

0:33:55 Thomas: Huh.

0:34:06 Lydia: Right. That's enough of that one. It's just like so bizarre. So bizarre. Like, he thinks that's a gotcha. Or I guess whoever wrote his line of questioning thinks that's a gotcha, because she does land acknowledgments as part of her job that. Oh, so have you, have you personally decided to deed any of your property to the tribes on which your property is located? So stupid.

0:34:13 Thomas: Yeah. Oh. My god, you idiots. It's the same as the, oh, you think we should tax people hard? Why don't you just pay more taxes yourself? Because that wouldn't fucking do anything, you idiot. It doesn't make any sense, moron.

0:34:34 Lydia: Yep. Yep, yep. And as I alluded to at the top of the show, let's get to the Mickey Mouse line of questioning.

0:34:44 Thomas: Oh boy, refreshing, we're finally getting to the substance. Oh.

0:34:47 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:34:47 Clip: History museum be the site that focuses in 2020. Yes, under your leadership it has been used as a Reference, um, is Mickey Mouse racist? Mickey Mass is not racist. It's not racist according to the Smithsonian, uh, Institution, one of your exhibits, rep, referenced Mickey Maus is representing quote vestiges of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy. Would you describe that as racist? No, the historical trajectory of the origins of, of Mickey Mouth tied directly. So Mickey Mouse is rooted in racism. You don't think that black-faced minstrels-y is racist? It had certain unobvious racial overtones that have been well-documented and are regrettable. You think that that's problematic that Mickey Mouse also has those racial over tones?

0:34:53 Thomas: This guy, fucking Mr. Gill, shut up.

0:34:55 Lydia: Mm hmm,

0:35:39 Thomas: I don't know. Do you, asshole? Yeah.

0:35:39 Clip: It's not for me to determine what's problematic. Is it important to be polite?

0:35:45 Thomas: Yes.

0:35:46 Lydia: Yeah, okay, pause there. Oh, God, yeah.

0:35:48 Thomas: Oh God, he just got owned so hard.

0:35:52 Lydia: So silly.

0:35:53 Thomas: Because, and it's so, they try to outwoke the woke for a second, you're like, I donno, man, is that like, it's an interesting history. I think what she's probably saying is like, well, the origin of, of it has ties to this minstrel, re, how do you say it, minstral c, okay, and it might be that that wasn't intended in a racist way at the time.

0:36:07 Lydia: Minstrelsy? Mm hmm?

0:36:15 Thomas: Maybe, and that seems like maybe what she's getting at, but it's racist and we don't hear it anymore. Like factually racist versus intentionally so.

0:36:15 Lydia: Mm hmm yeah, Yeah, I think that's a perfectly fine thing to say, like, like, our art comes from something, right? It comes from the, the environment that we're in, the culture that we're raised and the things that we consume too, and like, who's to say that Walt Disney wasn't exposed to these, these things and yeah.

0:36:36 Thomas: Oh, it definitely I'm sure it openly and, like, unabashedly was probably based in that, like, I, I imagine, and, and so it's really funny that she can just be like, well, it's what happened. So don't you think that's racist? I don't know, man. It's just what happened, so yeah. Isn't the whole thing like you want accuracy?

0:36:42 Lydia: Right. Yeah. It's not for me to determine that, I, yeah, I'm curating an exhibit.

0:36:55 Thomas: Yeah. She's just like, I don't know, you tell me. It's good. I like it. I like It. Okay. Let her cook. Maybe I underestimated it a little bit.

0:36:57 Lydia: Yeah, yeah. Keep playing, because a few minutes later, about a minute later, he's going to ask her about Latina power, but we'll play through some white supremacism concerns he has.

0:37:09 Thomas: Not familiar with that cartoon.

0:37:13 Clip: It's also interesting because the same mass action toolkit that your organization has been promoting references politeness as a defining characteristic of white supremacy Ma'am, are you a white supremacist?

0:37:20 Thomas: What the fuck? What?

0:37:32 Clip: Can you help me square why your organization says that being polite is part of being a, I'm not exactly familiar with that passage of the Mass Action toolkit, which is not, I can show you here. I don't, pardon me, I said, I just read you the

0:37:48 Thomas: Not one that we developed.

0:37:48 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:37:52 Clip: Passage from it. And then your question was, sir, we're gonna move on. What is, what is Latino power? What is Latino Power? Latina power. Latina Power would be the the forces derived from being a Latina. Do you think that it's appropriate for the Smithsonian Institution to sell Latina power paraphernalia? Hats, mugs, other things that say Latina Power? I believe that the merchandise our store

0:37:53 Thomas: Okay. Yeah. Huh.

0:37:55 Lydia: Yeah, she's so irritated, all

0:38:17 Thomas: What? Does that seem, yeah

0:38:27 Clip: Sells. I'm asking you if it's appropriate. Tries to reflect the richness of the communities. So your, your testimony is that it is appropriate. Those are your words, sir. I'm asking you, is it appropriate to sell Latina power paraphernalia? It's a yes or no question. I don't have control over what is, I'm, I'm, you, if it's appropriate. I didn't ask you if you have control over it. Is it inappropriate, yes or no? Again, we strive to represent all Americans, and including, is it

0:39:03 Lydia: Right. God, I was like, okay, she's like, she's holding it strong, you know, and just kind of reiterating her position.

0:39:03 Thomas: I think she's handling this pretty well. Yeah, yeah, I think she is doing a good job. I think it's like the way to try to handle this, and it's hard, you know. It's not like, you know, I'd be an expert or anything, but us having watched so much of this, it does feel like one way to take away the power is to just be like, what's the dumb fucking thing, sorry, moron says what? Oh, uh, yeah, I don't know. It seems like underreacting, you know. It's hard because sometimes it's like, it's so fucking racist or whatever they're saying. That's like, it's hard because you don't want to like excuse anything or like seem like you're letting them get away with anything. But it's also, it's their fucking clown car.

0:39:27 Lydia: Yep. Very Calm.

0:39:44 Thomas: You know, they get they get control ultimately of what happens. And so I feel like being purely responsive in a way that like, I think she's doing a really good job. I think it's very effective.

0:39:55 Lydia: It also prevents them from being able to get the sound bites that they want. Like, you're under reacting, so now the sound bytes that they have are them spiraling.

0:39:58 Thomas: Perspective. Yeah, she knows, because she's not an idiot and this guy is an idiot, that the obvious response if she says yes is going to be, so could we sell a white power? Who's a white god? So she's just like, yeah, I don't know. Oh

0:40:11 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Okay, now we have to get to the RuPaul part of the hearing. This starts with Birchett. He holds up a poster of what he calls sexually explicit museum artifacts. And I sent you that link too.

0:40:19 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, but there are a lot of like, just setting everything else aside, museums are riddled with fucking sexually explicit whatever. Yeah, that's, that's all humans did for all of time.

0:40:31 Lydia: Yeah. Everything. There's so many penises on everything. There was no TV. What else were they supposed to do?

0:40:41 Thomas: The first art anyone ever made was like a lady with boobs.

0:40:46 Lydia: Pretty much.

0:40:47 Thomas: That's just how it is. Fucking idiots.

0:40:48 Clip: Thank you, sir. They're highlighted by your museum. The poster behind me shows an exhibit called Entertainment Nation on display now. Do you think these exhibits behind me are appropriate for children? So I recognize some of the

0:40:49 Lydia: Yeah,

0:41:00 Thomas: It hasn't shown them, so.

0:41:05 Lydia: It's just a poster. We'll see it later.

0:41:06 Thomas: Okay.

0:41:13 Clip: The images from Entertainment Nation and from, I think, some other sources, but let me, I think, tell you what I think is most important, ma'am. Ma'am, I mean, you have pictures of bondage, you have some overtly sexual things up there, you have transgendered folks, I assume that's what they are, and some, I don't care who it is

0:41:14 Thomas: Ah. Oh,

0:41:39 Lydia: Did you hear that? Oh my God.

0:41:40 Clip: I don't care who it is, it's still not a fan, I can tell you that. But in another

0:41:46 Lydia: All right. Pause there. Yeah? So he just assumes someone off mic goes, that's RuPaul, isn't it?

0:41:47 Thomas: Man. So funny. Yeah.

0:41:54 Lydia: I don't care who that is. But yeah, just assumes that RuPaul is transgender. Nancy Mace decides to pick up that same exact idea and that same exact poster. And I think here we can see it a little bit better so you can get the visual of it. Unfortunately, she's going away. Yeah. And she lost her bid for governor.

0:41:54 Thomas: Oh, boy. She's still in Congress? Is she going away or not? Oh, really?

0:42:15 Thomas: Oh, thank God. Fuck you. You, I'm tired of her having such a principled stance on sexual assault or, or Epstein, but then somehow that doesn't at all lead her to the conclusion like, "Hmm, sure seems like one party and one person in particular is not doing a good job on those things." Asshole.

0:42:32 Clip: Exhibit A, six-year-old girl. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Dr. Hartig, how many children visited the National Museum of American History last year? Hi, good morning, ma'am. Since for the question, how many kids? Good morning, ma'm, since we don't charge. Weird. Are you the director of the museum? I am, ma'am. Okay, and you You don't know how many people visited the museum last year? Ma'am, I don't have those exact figures for you, about American history is a core duty of the museum? And are images of sexual fetishes Or is sexual imagery, provocative sexual imagery Ma'am, we strive to represent all Americans. You strive to present queer, pedophiles, indoctrination, grooming of kids at an American history museum, and it sounds like you're proud of it. You won't answer the questions, probably because you're ashamed. And as a woman, I really can't believe you will sit here today and you can't even admit that sexual imagery like this behind me, they tell me, my staff tells me, this little trinket around the penis, This is BDSM in a setting where children are walking through.

0:42:47 Thomas: Don't even know Shut up. Oh my

0:43:53 Lydia: So she's

0:43:57 Clip: Like, what kind of message are you trying to send to kids with BDSN imagery? Are you sexualizing children?

0:44:07 Thomas: God, she's just, yeah.

0:44:08 Clip: Is that what your motive is for the museum? So that specific two-piece. Do you know how many kids get raped by adults every year in this country? This kind of thing, when you are dressing men up as women, drag queens, you're

0:44:22 Thomas: You fucking idiot, there's nothing to do with anything.

0:44:24 Clip: Putting this kind crap in front of kids sexualizes them and makes them more vulnerable to people that want to rape them or abuse them or When we have men and women settings that want to do harm to to women, you talked about the Girlhood exhibit and you didn't want to answer the chairman's questions earlier, but it was a diary featuring a a six-year-old, a six year old that reads, everybody was talking about getting boobs in their period. I pray to God every night for my penis to grow. Dr. Hartig, can you tell me, look me in the eye and tell me that that belongs in an exhibit for kids?

0:44:32 Thomas: Sure.

0:45:01 Clip: Ma'am, Girlhood, It's Complicated was not an exhibit designed for children. I know, you had the little disclaimer thing, Okay, do you think that's an appropriate thing Museum, where there are children walking through. We're talking about American history. Right. So, girlhood, it's complicated.

0:44:58 Thomas: Doesn't Sure, you idiot, yes.

0:45:21 Thomas: The Americans have gender.

0:45:23 Clip: Okay. I'm moving on, because you just—I don't know how much money you spent on getting prepped for this hearing. They did a good job, because your filibustering and not answering a single question from a single Republican. Today, do you believe that men can become Ma'am, as the director of the museum, that's not relevant in this case. It's very relevant. You've got men dressed up as women and you have them on displays in front of kids. Do you think men can become women, yes or no? So, RuPaul's Drag Race, which is the... It's a man. RuPaul is a man who dresses like a woman, literally. What is a woman Dr. Hartig? As a director and as a

0:45:33 Thomas: Because you're dumb, uh.

0:45:56 Thomas: Uh-huh, yeah, agreed, agreed.

0:46:04 Clip: Historian, it's not my opportunity. You sexualized the American History Museum, so So this is a fair question, what is a woman? So at the museum- What is a women?

0:46:14 Thomas: Fucking clowns.

0:46:14 Clip: We strive to represent and not categorize all Americans. Okay, I have another question for you. There's a glossary at the Museum that informs visitors that while American culture traditionally recognizes two genders, other countries recognize three or more.

0:46:28 Thomas: Yeah, maybe they do, dip shit.

0:46:29 Clip: So enlighten me this morning, how many genders are there? Ma'am, which glossary? This is, okay, this is a display, and it has a glossary that says other countries recognize three or more genders. So I would like you to enlighten me today. You're the director of the American History Museum who has sexualized things in front of kids. I want to know, I wantto ask you, how many genders are there? So first of all, I'm happy to get back to you about the glossary. How many genders are there, and what are they? I'm not sure which glossary you're speaking of. You knew exactly what this hearing was about today. Ms. Stansbury you're recognized.

0:46:35 Thomas: Um, you just, you Just, that's so good, I love, um, first off, nothing will ever beat Joe Biden's answer, if there's at least three, fucking all-time great answer. Uh, secondly, yeah, this is all they have, and you know what's so funny is, like, we literally just took our kids to a Museum. There's plenty of sexual stuff all the time. That's what museums are, idiot, you fucking moron, God. These people haven't been to a museum. Maybe that's the problem is that. Okay.

0:47:27 Lydia: Yep, yep, yesterday. Yeah. No, I think that's a great point, so, so that is something that comes up where, um, Melanie Stansbury, New Mexico Democrat, and we're about to hear from her on another comment too, where she just, like, point blank asks everybody, she's

0:47:49 Thomas: Hey, do you know what a museum is? Yeah. Oh boy.

0:47:51 Lydia: Like, "Hey, everybody in this room who's all been to a Smithsonian museum in the last couple months," and not everybody raises their hand. She's, she's like, "Okay, yeah, I go like once a week." And yeah, exactly. Like, do you know what a museum is? This is not abnormal. So yeah, why don't we go ahead and listen to her because she jumps in on the RuPaul of it all.

0:48:01 Thomas: Nice. Yeah, oh. Oh, boy. So good.

0:48:14 Clip: All right, well, it has been an interesting hearing, as these hearings always are, and so I have a lot of ground to cover. I want to just start out by, Mr. Chairman, inviting you to invite the entire committee to go down to the Smithsonian Museum. The American Smithsonian is a mere two miles from here, and I'd also like to invite some of my colleagues, if you want to come over, we can watch Drag Race, we can have some cocktails, I think you will have a different opinion once you watch it. Okay, but let's talk a little bit about the museum.

I heard the testimony from the majority's witnesses today and I have to say, I think probably most Americans, with all due respect, sirs, would have no idea what museums you're talking about, because that is not the museums as they are presented. And I think that, as many of my colleagues have stated today, if any of of our colleagues had actually stepped foot in these museums in the last few weeks or months, they would actually know what's inside these museums. In fact, I go on a regular basis. I went twice over the last week. And I am curious, though none of my colleagues have stuck around to actually hear the rest of this hearing, how many people in this room have actually been

0:48:41 Lydia: I

0:49:20 Thomas: Yeah, they don't care.

0:49:22 Clip: To a Smithsonian Museum in the month or two?

0:49:31 Clip: Unfortunately, my Republican colleagues who felt this hearing was so important to schedule didn't even bother to wait to the end to answer the question, maybe because they couldn't. Thank you, Mr.

0:49:40 Lydia: Couldn't let us leave this hearing without hearing from Lauren Boebert because this is really, she is, I know, I don't get it. I don't get it I can't believe she's still in even after the Beetlejuice nonsense that happened.

0:49:47 Thomas: She's still in Congress? I don't. Yeah. Yeah.

0:49:55 Thomas: My understanding is that she's a bit more savvy of a politician than Nancy Mace or some of these other clowns.

0:49:59 Lydia: Nancy Mace. Yeah. But she comes with the hard-hitting questions for sure.

0:50:04 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:06 Clip: Chairman, Director, Director Hartig, you, you've said that history is a prime tool of social justice and that museum, that the museum works to reframe the traditional celebratory narrative of US history. Isn't that just a polished way, way of saying that you intend to use a taxpayer-funded national museum to push a racial narrative that divides Americans by their skin color and by guilt?

0:50:39 Thomas: No?

0:50:41 Clip: Good morning, ma'am, and thank you for the questions.

0:50:44 Thomas: Stupid question.

0:50:46 Clip: I have said in a number of my talks that I grow, I think, increasingly confident that So you're using taxpayer-funded dollars to divide our country by racism and guilt?

0:51:01 Thomas: What?

0:51:02 Clip: I'm using the power of history. Madam Director, you changed the museum's mission away from preserving and presenting American history toward empowering people to create a more just and compassionate future. Who gave you the authority to turn the National Museum of American History into a vehicle for progressive political activism? So the Smithsonian is a nonpartisan institution, we're very proud. Who decides what is just, ma'am? I hope we can all agree that we want a just and compassionate future. We do so by preserving and sharing the stories of the past. And are you rewriting that history? Or ma'aam, no. So you are the one who is over all of this. You are the director, and it seems that you have the, the authority to decide what is what is just and what is compassionate. What about the tens of millions of aborted babies, the babies that have been killed in America? Where's the justice and the

0:51:50 Thomas: Just? Oh, boy.

0:52:01 Thomas: They don't have any decision.

0:52:03 Lydia: Why would she have an answer about this?

0:52:03 Thomas: They have no role within our museum. None of them are on the board. What

0:52:06 Clip: Compassion for them, ma'am? I believe in a just and compassionate future. Is, is it just? Is it just and compassion, compassionate to abort tens of millions of babies? I'm not here at this hearing to discuss that. Where's their history? I am not here at the steering to discuss them. Is that not a part of our American history? Did that not happen?

0:52:19 Thomas: The fuck are you talking about? Um, they don't have much of it. I have to imagine there's exhibits.

0:52:30 Clip: I was it only what you care about. Is it only the issues that you care about, and you being cushioned by white privilege and being propped up by your whiteness, as you claim, I'm paraphrasing. It Is that what you, you care about, just racism and making people feel guilty? No, ma'am. I care about the full richness. Since 1776, there's an estimated 3 billion people. So it is the honor of my life to try. There's over 50 million babies that have been aborted.

0:52:35 Thomas: On. Uh-huh.

0:53:02 Thomas: Oh.

0:53:03 Clip: It's the honor to do my best to tell the Americans. Director, you've said that loving.

0:53:05 Thomas: Yeah.

0:53:04 Lydia: Okay. Anyway, I just had to get that in there. Oh, my God.

0:53:06 Thomas: Yeah, well, they, none of them came here. Actually, sorry, they didn't.

0:53:11 Lydia: They didn't make it.

0:53:11 Thomas: They didn't, never. Yeah, no, they

0:53:17 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:53:17 Lydia: So then they have a second hearing on Wednesday. I'm going to come back to comment on Tuesday probably to close this out. I think that is just really special from another representative. But first, I want to close out our second hearing from Wednesday. This is from the House Administration Committee. This was a little bit shorter of a hearing.

And this is when we see the House Democrats with their rebuttal report that I talked about before that came out, the White House campaign to seize control of the Smithsonian and rewrite American history. They basically say that the report coming from the White House cherry -picked quotes, mangled basic facts, misstated who controls the institution, and that President Trump, quote, is abusing the power of the Whitehouse to pressure one of America's most respected cultural institutions into political disobedience.

So I mentioned before, too, that the Smithsonian Institution, so that the network of museums and education and research centers, receives about two -thirds of its funding from the federal government. Last budget cycle, Trump requested a 12 percent budget cut to the Smithsonian. So kind of like laying a little bit of the groundwork. Congress kept funding the same for this fiscal year, and they did not attach any of the policy conditions that the administration wanted. So that's a good sign.

0:54:27 Lydia: You know, that's including people as part of the Republican Party that did not go along with what he wanted there. So I don't know that they necessarily have to worry about their funding. I don't know if that's actually going to happen, but it's certainly a fight over pressure and influence and getting the Smithsonian to bend a little bit. Right. So then they can keep them bending. The other thing that I want to flag here that's been coming up in the conversations around the report and the hearings for the Smithsonian is how the White House has characterized some of the diversity-related exhibits. Bits, they've characterized them as degeneracy.

0:54:27 Thomas: Didn't Yeah, huh.

0:55:08 Lydia: And that's a very specific word and why I brought up Nazis at the beginning, because it was specifically used in 1937 in Nazi Germany on July 19th. The Nazi party staged something that they called, and obviously not in English, in the German translation, the Degenerate Art Exhibition in Munich, and they timed it the day after their approved art show by the regime, the Great German Art Exhibition, and they were right next door to each other. They had, yeah

0:55:42 Thomas: A Bunch of fucking bald eagles of freedom, I'm

0:55:44 Lydia: They displayed over 650 paintings and artworks that they had confiscated, um, things, you know, that were impressionism, cubism, anything that they deemed wasn't Aryan enough, basically. Anything modern art related, they had pulled from German state museums. They hung them crooked on the walls. They put mocking slogans next to them. It was designed to make fun of this art. And by the time they had purged, you know, everything from the state museums, they'd taken about 16 ,000 pieces from museums across Germany. Many of those pieces were sold and some of them were destroyed.

There were signs before this, before the degenerate art exhibition, that there was to be a war on art and culture, right? A pamphlet back in 1933 said that museum directors and curators who championed modern art should be fired, right, and you and Matt talk about this on OA a lot where it's like you lay like the groundwork early, right and you can kind of see like the little bits and pieces here, but what's amazing is that the degenerite art show, the second one that they wanted to make fun of everything, ended up being the most popular modern art exhibition in history up to that point. Two million people came to see it.

0:55:56 Thomas: Sure. Yeah.

0:56:59 Lydia: More went to that than went to the approved Nazi-endorsed event. And I think a lot of people probably came to see art that they don't know if they would have ever been able to see ever again. So that's dark.

0:57:00 Thomas: Sick.

0:57:11 Thomas: Wow. Yeah, it's, that's why it's like, it's a common punchline. I get it about, like, modern art and all that. And that's not to say that there isn't obviously modern art that makes no sense and all that crap. But once I learned about that, I sort of stopped wanting to, like, really play into that too much. Like, yeah, it's just not that important of a point to make.

0:57:29 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hm. Yeah.

0:57:33 Thomas: There is a bunch of bullshit art, fine. But if, like, someone's really dedicated to, like, why don't they just paint pictures of people that look, like, exactly like that, you know? Like, okay, you know, it's adjacent to the sort of fascistic mindset, you know. It just really is, and it's like, not, it's just not worth emphasizing, I don't think, too much.

0:57:53 Lydia: Yeah, do you want to see a little bit of footage from that time. I didn't send that to you yeah yeah Isn't that cool? I'll link this in the show notes so people can see it as well, um, but they actually have footage of people attending the the degenerate art exhibit and some of the the art that was shown

0:57:56 Thomas: Oh wow. Just I mean fuck you listeners. I get to watch something I guess. Whoa. Wow. Yeah.

0:58:17 Thomas: Oh my god, this is so funny. So their bullshit is like these strong statues and stuff. God, it's so pathetic. You fucking weak little boys. It's amazing how consistent that is. It's so consistent, just any sort of abstraction at all, they're like, I don't like to make strong man muscles God, a shot of Hitler looking at it with his mouth open like, what is this? It's not for you, man. Yeah, well, he was a painter Though.

0:58:34 Lydia: There doesn't Get art Oh That's true, just drew a lot of strong boys. So just keep that in mind if you see the word degeneracy in relation to art, like, know that it has a history with it. It has a very, very specific history. This isn't the first time that people have tried to wield influence over what it's displaying in the museum. It's been a long time that this has happened. It only happened a couple times, I guess. The first one was in 1991. This was an art exhibition that was going to be housed at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. It was going to be running for just a few months of 1991, 164 painting sculptures and photographs of the American frontier, and the art basically was helping to mask the cost of expansion of manifest destiny, of like the people and and the communities that were harmed by it, and sort of like looking at these paintings, that they're idealistic versions that westward expansion is a good thing, right? It's almost like propaganda in a way. Yeah.

0:58:49 Thomas: How did that go? How did his painting education go? I wonder. Yeah.

0:59:50 Thomas: I think it literally seems, it sounds like propaganda.

0:59:54 Lydia: And, uh, the exhibit was opening right as the Gulf War was wrapping up. And so a lot of people were not super happy about this idea that, like, America expanding and, like, going beyond its borders at whatever time, that that could be an issue, that that could be, could be a problem. And critics said that it was basically like an attack on the national mood. People were feeling pretty good about American power at the time. So the Senate Appropriations Committee, two senior members, Ted Stevens of Alaska and Slade Gorton of Washington, threatened to cut their funding over it. The second time was just a few years later in 1994. They were going to be doing a special exhibit for the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II at the National Air and Space Museum. They were going to put the actual Enola Gay, the B -29, that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

1:00:44 Thomas: Almost has a word gay in it. Can't do it.

1:00:49 Lydia: They were gonna have that as the centerpiece, yeah. But the problem was veterans and members of Congress didn't like how the exhibit was being presented because they felt that it was treating the Japanese as victims and that it was questioning whether dropping the bomb was morally justified rather than just commemorating the end of World War II.

1:00:49 Thomas: It's the gay Agenda. Yeah. And just being like, woohoo, sick, boom boom boom. Yeah, okay, man.

1:01:10 Lydia: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I have some cool footage from some news footage from back then, too. I'll put in the show notes so people can see. But they ended up giving in. The Smithsonian gave into that. And it's really too bad because I think it strips a lot of important nuance and context that we should be thinking about when we visit museums. But we didn't get to have that version. We had a stripped down version. The essay that they wanted to have was gone. And instead, they just had the Enola Gay itself and some photos. So what I want to leave everybody with is actually another clip from this hearing. This is from Democratic Congressman Kwesi Mfume out of Maryland. And honestly, I'm not even going to set this up. I'm just going to let let him speak because it's it's some powerful stuff here about what this might mean. Oof.

1:01:19 Thomas: Wow.

1:02:03 Clip: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I only have five minutes, so I'm going to try to make the most out of it by making some very clear points. Black people across this country are outraged at what is happening now with these efforts to do away with the African-American museum and all of the Smithsonian. They're outraged because they've lived too many years, been through too many struggles, suffered too many bruises, and clearly have very, very, very little to show for that sojourn here in this country. I want to be real clear about this. If you erase it, we will replace it. It's that damn simple. We don't seem to learn.

If anything, we should be looking at history to learn and to make sure that we are taking advantage of what we've learned. You know, it was Abraham Lincoln in 1848 who who addressed his countrymen in Edwardsville, Illinois, when you have succeeded in dehumanizing the Negro, when you had put him down and made it but for him to be, but as the beast of the field, when you've extinguished his soul in this world and placed him where the ray of hope is blown out, as in the darkness of the damned, Are you quite sure, he asked, that the demon you have roused will not one day turn and He said, what constitutes the bulwark of our freedom and our independence?

It is not, said Lincoln, our crown and battlements. It is our armies and our navies. It is NOT our bristling seacoast. All those things are not our reliance against tyranny, because they can all be turned against us without having made us weaker for the struggle. Our reliance, he said, as Americans is in the love of liberty which God has planted deep within all of us regardless of how we look and where we come from.

He said our reliance is in the spirit of freedom, which prides itself as the heritage of all men in all lands everywhere. And then he admonished, destroy that spirit and you would have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doorstep. Ignore, he said, the chains of human bondage and you prepare one day for your own limbs to wear them. A custom, he said, to trample on the rights of other people and you have lost the creative genius of your own American independence, and as such will become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.

Sound familiar? History taught us and still teaches us that we can't keep making the same mistakes. So I know this is a big discussion about a lot of aspects about the museum, but I'm here as a black man who grew up in segregation, who wasn't allowed to go certain places, who drank from a water fountain that said colored, who found his mother and his father unable to do anything other than basic day work. And if for no one else, if for them and their spirit and all the other nameless and faceless black men in this country and black women who made their bodies bridges, that some of us could get to the university, that some of could get a good job, that some of get to United States, if for no other reason, I want this to go out loud and clear, and I'm not speaking just on behalf of myself.

I know that I speak on behalf of so many people who are not here today. We will not let you destroy that museum. No matter how long it takes, how many battles are required, how much effort is needed, we We will not allow that to happen, unless you find a way to kill all of us and walk over our bodies to change history. That history is too sacred, it is too precious, and it will not be erased. Because, as I said, if you attempt to erase it, we will continue to replace it over and over and again.

1:06:40 Thomas: Yeah, wow.

1:06:40 Lydia: Yeah. The hurt that you can hear in his voice. It's like fear, but also this power and resiliency and like, you know, not fear in his voice, but knowing what could happen and standing up against that.

1:06:50 Thomas: I don't hear any fear Yeah, I think it's just fed up, you know? It's just like, obviously we do what we can, and, um, you can't make an entertaining show that's just a non-stop bummer fest. But every once in a while I'm reminded, oh yeah, these are the worst people in the world doing the worst fucking shit that's ever happened in our country, uh, trying to erase groups of people from existence, from our society, and, uh, yeah, it's god damn

1:07:00 Lydia: Yeah, uh huh. Uh huh. Yep. From history. Yeah I know. Yeah but we can't can't let that happen. And I think there's a whole lot of people who are very unwilling to let that happen. I just wanted to raise awareness about kind of where that battle is right now. I wish I knew where it went from here. As I said, the funding situation doesn't seem to be at risk at this point. I mean, I guess you'll have to see if they soften any of their exhibits moving forward, if there's indication that they might be giving in a little bit to the pressure. But I I really, really, really hope not because this administration is not going to be around forever, I hope. And we really, really need this stuff to stay. And the American people deserve it too. So sorry, I don't have a joke for us to go on about aborted fetuses or monarch butterflies. Dr.

1:08:14 Thomas: Tired of all these racist dinosaurs in my museum.

1:08:37 Thomas: George Washington feeling, I don't know what the Smithsonian is. I'm an idiot.

1:08:40 Lydia: Matthew Spaldegg. Dr. Mathew Spaldig. There's so many penises on everything. Dr.

1:08:52 Thomas: Ranking member from the committee on shit that doesn't fucking matter.

1:08:57 Lydia: Mathieu Spaldag.