WATCH: Heritage Foundation senior fellow says Congress needs to ‘clean out house at the Smithsonian’

Mike Gonzalez, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation, told Congress they need to “clean out house at the Smithsonian,” during a House Oversight subcommittee hearing Tuesday focused on the way the Smithsonian Institution presents scholarship on U.S. history.

Rep. Brian Jack, R-Ga., asked Gonzalez what Congress should do to fix what he described as an “ideological takeover of many of our institutions.” Jack said it was “clearly a problem” that is “dividing our country.”

Gonzalez said that “trying to reform with the present leadership” wouldn’t do anything.

“They're committed to the things they want to do,” he said. “We only have to listen to what they say and look at the evidence of what they have produced.”

Gonzalez said the Smithsonian’s exhibit review process, which the director of the National Museum of American History had previously detailed, isn't “going to fix anything.”

In announcing the hearing, the Republican-led committee claimed that the “Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History is promoting a narrow, politically tendentious agenda instead of seeking to instill in visitors an appreciation for America’s unique history as a beacon of liberty, democracy, and opportunity.”

In President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration has sought to clamp down on how American history is framed in public spaces, removing exhibits from national parks on slavery and violence against Native Americans.

The hearing is one of two scheduled for this week in the House focused on the Smithsonian.

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