Sen. Lisa Murkowski is the lone Republican pushing back against President Trump's executive order directing corrective signs outside the National Museum of American History, teaming up with a Democrat to demand answers from the Interior Department.
Murkowski, who chairs the Senate Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, co-signed a letter with the panel's ranking Democrat, Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon, to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum. The letter challenges the administration to explain how it plans to carry out Executive Order 14416, titled "Restoring Trust in the Smithsonian Institution," which Trump signed late last month. The order directs Burgum to install "temporary exhibits or signage" on federally owned sidewalks and walkways near the museum, signs that would, in the executive order's words, correct "inaccurate information presented in the Museum."
The Alaska Republican's move splits her from the rest of her party on a culture-war flashpoint that has united most GOP lawmakers. House Appropriations Committee conservatives told Fox News Digital they want new guardrails on the Smithsonian's roughly $1 billion in annual taxpayer funding, leverage they hope will force the institution to change exhibits Republicans call "inherently political," "anti-white," and "woke."
Murkowski, by contrast, defended the museum's record.
In the bipartisan letter to Burgum, Murkowski and Merkley wrote:
"For the past 180 years, the Smithsonian Institution has been committed to sharing objective historical evidence through research and education, not political narratives."
That framing is hard to square with the exhibit language that triggered the executive order in the first place. Republicans have pointed to a display inside the National Museum of American History that describes Walt Disney's "Steamboat Willie", the 1928 cartoon that introduced Mickey Mouse, as representing "vestiges of long-standing traditions of blackface minstrelsy." Trump accused the museum of teaching history through "an inaccurate and hyper-partisan lens."
Whether a taxpayer-funded institution labeling a beloved American cartoon as a relic of racial oppression qualifies as "objective historical evidence" is precisely the question most Republicans believe answers itself. Murkowski apparently disagrees.
The letter went further, praising the Smithsonian's mission in sweeping terms:
"The Smithsonian Institution has worked tirelessly to present a comprehensive narrative of our nation's amazing history, from its many triumphs to its trials. There is nothing more American than telling our story truthfully."
Murkowski's willingness to cross party lines is nothing new. She has repeatedly broken with the GOP majority on education policy, spending fights, and procedural votes, a pattern that has drawn direct criticism from the president himself.
Murkowski and Merkley's letter posed several specific questions to Burgum. They asked whether there is any precedent for federal land or funds being used to communicate "conflicting information" to a nearby entity's operations. They asked who would compile the content for the signs. And they asked what the timeline and cost of the project would be.
Those are fair procedural questions. But the letter conspicuously avoids engaging with the substance of the Republican critique, that exhibits at a museum receiving a billion dollars a year in taxpayer money have drifted into progressive editorial commentary rather than straightforward historical presentation.
Trump has publicly called out Murkowski before for defying him on policy fights, and her latest move will do nothing to ease that tension. She is now the only Senate Republican publicly questioning the Smithsonian executive order.
While Murkowski sends letters, House Republicans are considering a more direct approach. Several conservatives on the House Appropriations Committee told Fox News Digital they want to attach new conditions to the Smithsonian's federal funding, conditions designed to force changes in how exhibits are curated, or risk losing government dollars.
The Smithsonian receives roughly $1 billion annually from Congress, making it one of the most heavily subsidized cultural institutions in the country. That funding gives lawmakers real leverage, and the House conservatives appear ready to use it.
The executive order itself takes a narrower step. EO 14416 directs Burgum to use "existing avenues" to restore public trust in the Smithsonian, starting with temporary corrective signage on federally owned public land surrounding the museum. The signs would not be placed inside the museum or alter existing exhibits, they would stand on sidewalks and walkways the federal government already controls.
That distinction matters. The order does not shut down exhibits, defund the institution, or override curatorial decisions. It adds the government's own commentary on publicly owned ground outside a publicly funded building. Whether that constitutes overreach or ordinary accountability depends entirely on whether you think the exhibits inside are accurate.
Murkowski's break from Republicans on this issue fits a broader pattern of GOP senators siding with Democrats on votes and policy disputes where the rest of the conference holds firm. Those fractures have frustrated party leadership and complicated the administration's agenda on multiple fronts.
Neither Interior Secretary Burgum nor the Smithsonian Institution has publicly responded to the Murkowski-Merkley letter. The administration has not disclosed who will compile the content for the corrective signage, what it will cost, or when it will appear.
Those details will shape how the order plays out in practice. But the underlying dispute is not really about signs on a sidewalk. It is about whether a federally funded museum can present contested progressive interpretations of American culture, labeling Mickey Mouse's debut as a product of minstrelsy, for instance, and call it neutral scholarship, while dismissing any pushback as political interference.
Murkowski's letter treats the Smithsonian's 180-year track record as self-evidently credible. Most Republicans look at the same institution and see an example of how progressive ideology has quietly colonized taxpayer-funded cultural life, and they want accountability, not deference.
The fractures within the Republican conference are not limited to the Smithsonian fight. From judicial rulings to Supreme Court decisions to grassroots frustration with the party establishment, the question of who actually holds the line on conservative principles keeps producing uncomfortable answers.
When a billion taxpayer dollars flow to an institution each year, the people writing the checks have every right to ask what they are paying for. Murkowski chose to ask the administration instead.