Reclaiming Truth: How Trump's Smithsonian Directive Challenges Marxist Narratives

The cultural battle for America's soul plays out daily across our institutions, and today we're celebrating significant victories on multiple fronts that honor biblical, historical, and constitutional principles.

President Trump has issued a bold directive to reshape how American history is presented across the Smithsonian museum system. Far from erasing difficult chapters like slavery, as critics claim, the initiative aims to restore balance to historical narratives that have become dominated by divisive, race-centered ideologies. David and Tim Barton unpack how many government-run museums have adopted a Marxist framework that categorizes all of history through the lens of oppressors versus oppressed, while deliberately omitting America's exceptional anti-slavery leadership. The directive calls for assessing "the tone, historical framing, and alignment with American ideals" to ensure visitors receive the complete story—acknowledging both America's flaws and its remarkable achievements.

In the corporate sphere, Costco has made the principled decision not to sell abortion pills, joining other major retailers like Walmart and Kroger. This stand values human life over potential profits, influenced partly by faith-based shareholders with $172 million invested across these companies. The decision represents a powerful counterforce to the growing distribution of mifepristone, which has replaced brick-and-mortar clinics as the primary method of abortion in America.

The show concludes with an uplifting story about New York Jets quarterback Justin Fields, who candidly shared his growing relationship with God and newfound "addiction" to daily Bible reading. His public testimony about finding wisdom in Scripture and seeking God's approval above all else offers a refreshing example of faith in professional sports.

These developments signal encouraging shifts toward traditional values across different sectors of American society. When truthful narratives are restored, life is protected, and faith is celebrated publicly, we glimpse what genuine cultural renewal might look like.

Chapters

• 0:00 Good News Friday Introduction
• 0:51 Trump's Smithsonian Museum Directive
• 9:37 Honest Historical Narratives
• 17:23 Costco Rejects Abortion Pills
• 22:49 Trump Rejects WHO Agreement
• 24:32 NFL QB Justin Fields' Bible Journey

Transcript

Rick Green [00:00:07] Welcome to the Intersection of Faith and Culture. It's Good News Friday. Let's jump into some good news. I'm Rick Green here with David Barton and Tim Barton. You can learn more about us at our website, wallbuilders.show and wallbuilders.com. Always taking a biblical, historical and constitutional perspective to everything. So obviously what we deem as good news would be something that falls in line with those biblical, historical and Constitutional values. And if we don't get enough in today, there's always more at that website, That's the radio site where you can catch up on shows you might have missed or just listen daily at that link or you can send it out to your friends and family, which we strongly encourage you to do. But for now, let's just dive into some good news. David Barton is getting started. Go ahead, bro. 

David Barton [00:00:49] I'm going to start with what Trump is doing with the Smithsonian Museum. The Smithsonian actually is not a museum. It's 21 museums and some additional properties as well. So you've got the Air and Space museum, museum of African-American history, Native American history, museum of American history. All these different museums. And what has happened is if you go through really pretty much anything that's been federal for the last six, eight, 10 years, it has a very distinctive left perspective to everything. As the left just as they have the universities they bought into DEI and they bought in to the CRT and all the other stuff And by the way, let's be real clear because I want to get this a minute with Trump something to say with Trump look, there's no there is no reason not to be covering race and to be cover diversity and be covering those issues in history the problem is if that's your only focus and only filter through which you see things We ought to be covered in the issues of race. Well be covering the issues a slavery but we also ought to be covering the issues of antislavery and those who fought against it as well. 

Tim Barton [00:01:51] Well, and dad, I think more specifically, what you're referencing is we ought to be covering and telling the American story. And when it covers in the American Story, people that are pro-slavery, you say they're pro- slavery. When it covers people that were anti-slave, you see it's anti- slavery, but you just tell the story when you are not focused on telling the story, that the whole story, the true story, that good, the bad and the ugly, when instead you want to say we're only going to focus on a DEI perspective, on critical race theory, on whatever that position might be. If that's the only part of the story you're telling, then you're being incredibly dishonest in that presentation of history. And so it's not that we should have portions where we tell the pro-slavery or anti-slave story. No, you tell the American story and you kind of let the chips fall where they may. You talk about people like an Abraham Lincoln, like a Jefferson Davis, a Robert E. Lee, a U.S. Grant, you tell their story and you include the details of their story in that presentation, but you don't categorize history and say, well, now we're going to tell white people history. Now we're gonna tell black people history, now we are going to tell the Asian people history et cetera. No, you'd tell the story of what you're telling the story of if it's a story of America. You tell the of America, unfortunately, as you're alluding to, the Smithsonian Museum has Museums that only tell one part of the story and it's not necessarily the honest American part of story and by the way even sometimes if it's like the Smithsonian Museum of African-American history where they do cover a lot of the Story of black people in America and those that came from Africa and elsewhere the problem is in this presentation of history of black Americans or African Americans they they are leaving out incredibly significant details in lots of ways and they're only telling portions of the story when you go to the museum the fact that they they don't acknowledge there was a single white person against slavery in america until you get until the early 1800s the 1820s and 30s or the when according to their presentation it's the first time white people actually oppose slavery 

David Barton [00:04:00] I think you met the 1630s with the Pilgrims. You said the 1830s, but you clearly met the, oh, I see, you're saying that's not in the museum. Is that the point? Got it. 

Tim Barton [00:04:10] Leaving out the story of the Quakers or the Pilgrims. I mean, you go to this very long list when usually historians that look back and if you ask when was the first anti-slavery society formed in America, you kind of can point to Philadelphia 1774. This is the first one there. Philadelphia, of course, being part of Pennsylvania. Well, let me back you up in Pennsylvania history. The late 1600s, there was a Quaker movement against slavery, and it's not quite the same thing as the anti-Slavery Society of 1774, but it's essentially, essentially what they're doing in late 1600s where they form a group of people opposing openly and at opposing advocating for the end of slavery, which Quakers were always against war. They were always against, slavery. It's part of their religious faith and belief. And dad kind of to your point, even the pilgrims had some very strong positions against some of these things, but what has happened in the Smithsonian's is they've taken a very biased perspective, only telling parts of certain parts of the story and leaving out details that maybe don't help them promote the agenda they're promoting in that moment. 

David Barton [00:05:13] So when you look at that, and this is our position, you tell history, the good, the bad, the ugly. Trump is so tired of all over DC, it has a DEI perspective, so it doesn't tell the good the bad the ugly, it tells the bad and it highlights the bad and emphasizes the bad. And so I've seen a lot of pushback from conservatives in the last couple of days because he's calling for a relook at Smithsonian's and how they present stuff. And one of the things he complained about was the way they cover slavery. And people said, no, wait a minute, if Trump's got a be against covering slavery, I think he's wrong. That's not the deal. He's against the obsession with slavery is the only thing you cover. It's not that he doesn't wanna cover slavery. He wants to cover what he calls American exceptionalism, what Tim just went through. The fact that we were the first nation in the world to start fighting against slavery before the rest of the world did so. I mean, that's what he also wants to be part of the story. 

Tim Barton [00:06:05] Point out too, I don't think is that he doesn't want to cover slavery as some people are arguing today that he wants to ignore it in white Washington history, but what the 1619 project did and what's now being tied in school is that slavery is what birthed America. That America was built in the backs of slaves and all that America has done has been at the oppression of black individuals and therefore America is fundamentally evil and and it's systemically racist and systemic oppression. And he's saying that's not the honest story. That's not. The whole story. There's way more to this story. And I don't see, and I cannot imagine it genuinely using my imagination. I cannot even imagine president Trump taking the position that said slavery never happened in America. Well, that would be one of the most ignorant positions you should take. Or you could take, but this is literally what the left is accusing him of doing of ignoring a historic reality. Slavery absolutely existed in America But if we're not telling the honest story, that if you go back to the 1700s, and if you ask some very basic, what should be obvious questions, was there any nation in the 1700 that did not have slavery and part of that nation? Well, no, that's the way nations were in the 17 hundreds and to go further, can you name any political leaders in the seventeen hundreds that had money and power and didn't have slaves? And really you can't. Because this is the way the world worked at that time. But if you look and go, okay, now let's ask more honest questions. Can you identify a nation where the political leaders of that nation actually began taking very strong positions against slavery? America is the nation that happened it. Not around the rest of the world, though it was America, where literally founding fathers of this nation began taking strong anti-slavery positions, began actually putting that in legislation. We begin in America. To abolish slavery and not just a slave trade. Slavery itself, we did two things. We abolished the slave trade and we abolished slavery and none of this is the story that the Smithsonian Museums are telling. All of this they're ignoring. They're whitewashing saying nope, America was built on the backs of slaves. Again, slavery absolutely happened in America and some people would call it our original great sin. I don't know. That I necessarily agree with that. I think there were some other really great sins we had in our nation too. I don't know if this was necessarily the first one. However, certainly this is a stain on the storybook of America, but we're disingenuous if we don't acknowledge that America led a huge movement against this. America actually has one of the most impressive anti-slavery records because America arguably didn't become a nation until 1776 and we ended slavery in 1865. So as far as like The extent of a nation, we had slavery actually for a less time in our nation than virtually any other nation in the history of the world. And to go further, we're the first ones that signed a law actually banning the slave trade. It was the northern colonies of New England that began passing laws abolishing the slave trade and slavery as soon as the American Revolution was over. Again, I can go on and on and on. The very aggressive, strong anti-slavery positions America took, the fact that we actually fought a war, where white people fought a war against white people and at the end of the war they freed all the black people, that this is quite unique in world history. It happened in America, but the fact again that the Smithsonian doesn't want to tell that part of the story, there have been people there saying nope, systemic racism, systemic oppression, that's just the narrative they're promoting, that's what President Trump was coming out against, not saying that slavery never happened, and dad back to your point, the really good news is... That now he's taking some steps as his team is taking steps to help the Smithsonian update their language and maybe tell more of the honest story. 

David Barton [00:09:51] And I was in DC last week working on the 250th, which is history, clearly. And while there was meeting with some of the higher officials in the Interior Department, and they're the ones that are over all of the national parks, all of the museums, the American Museum stuff that is government owned, not private owned, but all of that stuff. I told them that what I thought was the worst museum in the Smithsonian system was the Museum of African American History, because it is so biased in one direction. There is no chance you come out of there with an accurate historical view on the early years, the early centuries of American history, it's just not going to happen. And I think probably the second most biased museum there is museum of native American history because it again is the oppression of the whites and timeout before any allegedly white person landed here. If you want to call Columbus white, I don't know that he's Anglo or not, but let's say he's the Anglo that they hate so much. You already have American anthropologists and archeologists that have shown that between 20 and 40% of Native Americans were enslaved by other Native American tribes before any white guy, white person, sit foot here. And then you also have the Comanches, and the Comanche spent more time fighting other tribes than they ever spent fighting Anglos, and the same with the Apaches, and the the same the Navajos. Navajos had a 240-year war against other tribes. That does not come out in those museums. It's all about hey this is depressed people and it's only white people that are capable of oppressing others and that tone is what has to go out to the Smithsonian's. 

Tim Barton [00:11:22] And, dad, just to highlight what you're referencing when you're saying that they have the wrong tone. It's a Marxist ideology They're promoting and so the wrong tone is it's a marxist tone it's it's not an honest truthful tone and this is not saying that There there shouldn't be stories told of events that actually happened it's saying tell the whole story and when you are painting the history of America as The the victims and the victimizers right the oppressed and the oppressors you're not being honest with that presentation of that story. And part of this, by the way, should be very easy for people of faith to understand because we come from a Christian perspective that is very clear that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that we are all sinners who need a Savior, and why does that matter? Because when you study the history of any people group or any person, you're going to quickly realize that's a flawed sinner who needs a Savior. Now, the good news is there is a Savior! Jesus came! We can be saved and redeemed and restored. There can be good that comes from these broken, imperfect individuals, but why it matters is if we're telling the story of history and there's a group of people, we say these people were always good. They were innocent and bad, oppressive things happen to him by these really evil people, if one group of people is entirely evil and one group people is entirely good, we might not be telling that story entirely correctly, right? And this is not to say there aren't bad guys in certain narratives and, you know, they might not been victimized by bad guys. Of course, obviously, you know, if you go back World War II, sure, the Nazis, the Holocaust camps, the Jews, yes, we can go through narrative. I get it. But the point is that if you're painting a very broad brush and you're saying there are only oppressed and oppressors, and if you are in a certain group, for hundreds of years all you've ever been is an oppressor, if you were in another group, all you have ever been is oppressed, that's where you're now becoming incredibly dishonest in that presentation. But that presentation is from Marxism. Marxism is this failed communist ideology. That wants to put people in groups and categories, saying that's the only way you can identify them is in a group and a category. They're not individuals with different desires or motives or free will. Nope, they're in a category that we will label them what they are. And that's a way that must be taught. And that what the Smithsonian's have largely done is teaching from a Marxist perspective. 

David Barton [00:13:46] For people who may have been Trump supporters, I'm seeing a lot of this going on now where they're picking up the left narrative and accusing him of something he actually didn't do. He's not opposed to the presentation of slavery. He's opposed to obsession of slavery as the only filter through which you see things. So I wanna just read you some of what he said that he wants in the museums. This is the directive that has now been given to all the Smithsonian system and parks and et cetera. And it says, quote, to assess the tone, the historical framing, and the alignment with American ideals. Says that it aims to ensure alignment with the president's directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, to remove divisive or partisan narratives, and to restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions. The president did not like the, quote, distorted narrative driven by ideology rather than truth, or the, quotes, divisive race-centered ideology. He rejects divisive and Ideologically driven language and wants to see it replaced with unifying historically accurate and constructive descriptions across placards across didactics digital displays and other public facing materials. So essentially they said what what what he said is we're trying to roll back DEI so don't let I think I think this is the best thing in a long time If you can get truth back out there in history If you can tell the good, the bad, the ugly. You're going to see that America is exceptional and we can probably point out more genuine blemishes than most people can and we still think American is exceptional because when you compare our nation to any other as Tim pointed out we got blemish is we just have a whole lot less than the other nations that's American exceptionalism with the exception not the rule and so that's something that that needs to be known so that we're not always attacking our nation and people. 

Tim Barton [00:15:37] And, dad, I would also add one thought. We have a lot less blemishes where we're accused of having blemishes. You know, because we're a nation full of people, of course we're not perfect. And I would even point to the fact that right now in America, the fact we allow third trimester abortions, there's almost no other nation in the world that does that. So right now, we have some major, major issues in our nation. And so even though historically I would say, What people accuse us of being one of the worst? No, we definitely were one of the best historically, presently? Oh, we're doing some horrific things that definitely Christians need to get engaged in the process, we need to getting involved, and we need help remedy some of the current horrific things. But when you come to the historic accusations, that is where they absolutely get it wrong as far as when they say that we are one of the worst, no actually, even though we did bad things, when you compare to other nations who were doing As many and way more bad things in most situations in America was in a a scale of very flawed nations we had one of the least amount of flaws of all the flaws in nations when you go back historically not that we didn't have them It just looks different and dad to your point It's great that the smithsonians are getting directives to update their narrative to include the whole story Not just the negative parts or not even fabricating details in the negative parts to make it seem even worse than it was in many occasions. That is really good news. 

David Barton [00:17:03] Yeah, as we're going to break, we'll have more good news when we come back. But I'm thinking about two main things from what you guys said. And Tim, you're so right. This is not like by accident that they leave stuff out or just a little bit of a bias. I mean, it is a concentrated Marxist effort. It's a tactic that they've always used. And to David's point, I mean the fact that president Trump is calling this out, that he's not afraid to call it out. I mean for so long we've seen this stuff happen and his just being so bold to really drain the swamp. I mean this is what we've set for a long time. We wanted to see the draining of the swamp. This is the type of thing that has to be done for the long-term health of the nation. So this is great, great news to begin our Friday with. Quick break. We'll be right back with more good news. You're listening to The WallBuilders Show. 

David Barton [00:18:50] Welcome back to The WallBuilders Show. Thanks for staying with us on this Good News Friday. And Tim, I think as we're closing out the program here, your first piece of... No, I'm kidding. We got a few minutes left. What's your first... 

Tim Barton [00:19:00] Good news, man. Well, this one deals with Costco. The headline says Costco decides against Selling abortion pills and and it really is great news What we know right now is that largely the brick-and-mortar abortion mills and abortion clinics are closing across the nation, which is Wonderful news. We do recognize with some of the changes in life and technology Right now the majority of abortions that happened in America happened through abortion pills And this is now a big market. And the fact that you have a very large retail facility that's saying that they're not going to distribute the abortion pill. And by the abortion pills, Mifflin-Prestone is the one largely we're talking about. And this something that is being distributed from US pharmacies and big companies all over the nation. The abortion pill is responsible that the article highlights. For killing millions of babies and killing and injuring countless women, which there are lots of those stories as well. Pro-abortion people want to point to a lot of the tragedies of women who have taken these abortion pills, thinking it would solve, you know, quote unquote solve some of their problems. And then it's led to devastating impacts in their own life where actually some of them, they've lost their lives in this. The pro-aborsion people say this is because The pro-life movement has closed down these abortion clinics, and these women couldn't have the quote-unquote proper health care they needed, and that's why they died. Of course, it's incredibly dishonest and disingenuous. It's not acknowledging the danger of what this abortion pill does, but overall, the good news is Costco confirmed it would not sell Mifepristone, and this is from the article, aligning with other major retailers like Walmart, Kroger, and Albertsons, which have also declined to sell the deadly pills. Kristen Hawkins, president of student for life action, celebrated this. The article has a quote from her Costco's decision not to sell abortion pills is a major win for life. It sends a powerful message that not every corporation is willing to profit from the destruction of unborn babies. So this is a really great acknowledgement because as she said, there's a lot of companies making a lot of money off of this and the fact that Costco has said. We're not going to try to make money off this abortion pill. That is a very significant thing for them to do. Also, what's pointed out in the article is as an example of why Costco might have made this decision, there's faith-based investment groups. There's one that holds 172 million in shares between Costco and Walmart and Kroger and Albertsons and the McKesson Corp. They sent letters to these companies, challenging them, don't do this. And the pressure appears to have resonated with, in this decision, Costco's choice, to not do this, emboldening pro-life advocates to continue to push their agenda against these retailers. So it's not just that maybe they have a really ethical board making really good decisions to respect and value life. It does identify in this article that there actually were shareholders that were putting pressure on these corporations to not do this. And then specifically, this is from a Christian shareholding organization. And so... Overall really good news that in the midst of where a lot of corporations and organizations they just want to make money that Costco said we're not really concerned in this situation If it makes us money or not, we're going to sell the abortion pill and that is a major win so congratulations and kudos to Costco 

David Barton [00:22:25] I never thought I'd hear Costco in our good news Friday. That's a, that's an interesting one. They were so bad during COVID, you know, and, and people were, you had all those videos that were coming out of people just being harassed like crazy when they went in, so I love the change and love hearing good news, especially on a front like that. All right. We're going to let, we're going try to do two fast ones. If we can, David, one more, one more from both of you. Hopefully if we can get them in, go ahead, bro. 

David Barton [00:22:49] Yeah. The Trump administration has rejected the WHO, the world health organization agreement officially, and that's really, really good and, and the reason that matters is because if you sign onto that treaty, then you give them the authority and power over that area of American affairs and that seeding power to unelected officials. And so they can tell you when you have to do certain things on healthy emergencies and they get to declare when a healthy emergency is what it is and how you respond to it. And I just I think back to George Washington when he talked about avoiding foreign entanglements that you don't want to get involved and let foreign folks make your decisions for your set your values for you or anything else. We are Americans. We Americans are capable of handling this and we have some of the best health care in the world, certainly the best technology, etc. We don't always make the most moral decisions with it, but that needs to be us making the decisions, not somebody even less moral than us making decisions, which is the WHO. So That's really good news. And by the way, I just got to throw out to Trump now has been involved in stopping wars in seven different countries in the last seven months. And he hasn't put American troops on the ground anywhere, which that's avoiding foreign entanglements. He's not making treaties with all these guys saying, Hey, America will come in and have your back. If you'll stop fighting that that's not it. And he's done a really good job of again, keeping us from getting entangled in foreign affairs with other nations, but helping do good things in the world. Without bringing us into a legally binding contractual position like this WHO treaty would have done. 

David Barton [00:24:24] We might, we might have to do a whole good news Friday just on all those peace treaties, I will say, but Tim, before you do our last one real quick out of the declaration, that's what he just did the opposite of what the King did. Cause in the declaration, one of the complaints was he has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, which is exactly what that WHO treaty would have been. Tim, go! 

Tim Barton [00:24:52] Alright, this one is from the New York Jets, which also seems odd to talk about the New York Jets on Good News Friday, but it's from their quarterback, Justin Fields. He had been with the Bears and the Pittsburgh Steelers. He just signed a two-year deal, $40 million. He might not need a second job with that pay rate and was so cool. He was talking to the press and I saw the videos of this where he was talking about reading the Bible and how he formed a new habit of reading the Bible and how important it was to him. And I want to read you a couple of quotes that he told the press. He said, I think I used to let other people's opinions shape mine, but you can't do that because you'll start to think like those opinions. I'm glad I've grown out of that stage and I'm that the only approval I need now is from my teammates, my coaches, and ultimately God. He went on and said, I've been getting closer to God, reading the Bible every day, building that relationship. There's so much wisdom and so many great lines I didn't even know about. Honestly, I'm low key addicted to like getting my Bible each day. Every day just because I learned something new every day and I'm able to apply it to my everyday life he said I was sleeping on the Bible earlier in my life. I wish I had started sooner I encourage everyone to just read a little bit and go from there he actually encouraged him to start in Proverbs because it's got so much great practical stuff. Guys, this is really cool you have a starting quarterback NFL a young up-and-comer who says the Bible is so important to read your Bible The approval of God is what matters what a great shift. We're seeing, again, we've talked about a lot of athletes doing this, but it's so cool to see more athletes getting on board promoting faith and the Bible. 

David Barton [00:26:26] What a great line that he's become addicted to the Bible. If you're going to have an addiction, that's the one to have.

David Barton [00:26:33] So much good news, guys revival in the land folks thanks so much for listening to our good news Friday today lots of great programming for you next week make sure you're tuning in have a fantastic weekend and thanks again for listening to the WallBuilder show