National Portrait Gallery removes references to Trump’s two impeachments from portrait label

WASHINGTON – The National Portrait Gallery has removed references to Donald Trump’s two impeachments from the caption accompanying a new portrait of the former president.

The Smithsonian Institution, which oversees the gallery, confirmed the change as part of a planned update to "The America’s Presidents" exhibition. A Smithsonian spokesperson said the museum is testing minimalist labels that provide only general biographical information.

The previous caption, which remains available on the museum’s website, noted Trump’s Supreme Court nominations and the development of COVID-19 vaccines. It also detailed his two impeachments on charges of abuse of power and incitement of insurrection, followed by his acquittals in the Senate.

The new caption identifies Trump as the 45th and 47th president. It lists only his birth year, his dates in office, and the name of the photographer.

The National Museum of American History recently made similar changes to its displays.

The revisions follow an executive order signed by Trump targeting "race-centered divisive ideology" at cultural institutions. Additionally, National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet recently resigned after Trump previously sought to fire her.

The removal of impeachment references from a presidential portrait at the Smithsonian Institution is far from a routine editorial update. It represents a significant inflection point in the politicization of public history, illustrating how executive pressure is actively reshaping the national narrative. Occurring against the backdrop of the Trump administration’s efforts to exert influence over Smithsonian leadership, the move underscores a deteriorating firewall between cultural governance and political optics.

The Smithsonian’s defense—characterizing the change as a stylistic pivot toward minimalism—is difficult to square with the selective nature of the edits. By excising two historic impeachments while maintaining other standard biographical details, the institution has prioritized political expediency over historical accuracy. This effort to sanitize a volatile tenure reflects a strategic push to normalize a controversial term, effectively bleaching the record of its most defining legal and constitutional conflicts.

This shift marks a troubling precedent for the independence of federal cultural institutions. It suggests that if historical milestones are deemed "divisive" by a sitting administration, they may be subject to erasure from the official record. In this paradigm, the national museum is downgraded from an objective repository of the American experience to an instrument of image management. For policy observers, the implications are clear: the erosion of these institutional norms threatens to distort the historical record, leaving future generations with a curated, rather than comprehensive, understanding of American governance.

While this event has no direct bearing on Vietnamese-American business ventures, remittances, or visa processes such as F2B, H-1B, TPS, and EB-5, its cultural implications run deep. For a community shaped by the vibrant hubs of Little Saigon—from the global nail salon industry to the local phở restaurants—the editing or erasure of controversial historical chapters at a national museum feels all too familiar. For those who hail from a homeland where history was often written by the victors, seeing this debate unfold in the United States underscores the critical importance of independent institutions and a free press in safeguarding a truthful and complete account of the past.