Brandon Gill’s Smithsonian Grilling Revives a Whiteness Chart From 2020

Dr. Anthea Hartig told Congress on Tuesday that politeness matters. Then Rep. Brandon Gill read her own museum’s paperwork back to her: politeness, according to that paperwork, is a defining characteristic of white supremacy culture. The Texas Republican asked the obvious follow-up, and the director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History had no clean answer.

The exchange has already logged millions of views on social media. It has not aired on a single broadcast late-night show, six years after a different Smithsonian museum was forced to pull almost the identical document.

Hartig Cannot Explain Her Own Museum’s Chart

The hearing took place before the House Oversight Committee’s subcommittee, titled questioned whether Mickey Mouse promotes racism during a session called “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past.” Gill asked Hartig if she thought it was important to be polite. She answered, “Yes, sir.”

Gill then read from the museum’s Mass Action Toolkit, a reference document Hartig’s museum has cited since around 2019 or 2020. It lists politeness as a defining trait of “White Supremacy Culture.”

Ma’am, are you a white supremacist?

Gill asked, according to the committee’s own transcript of the exchange. Hartig did not answer directly. She asked which document he meant, then said, “No, we’re not promoting any ideology,” before adding that the museum “did not come up with the toolkit.”

Gill pressed further, noting the same toolkit lists objectivity as another marker of white supremacy culture, a value Hartig had just told the panel the museum strives for. She repeated that the document wasn’t hers. Gill didn’t let it go. “It is your toolkit,” he said. “You’ve been promoting it for quite some time.” The congressman also asked Hartig whether an exhibit description tying Mickey Mouse to blackface minstrelsy made the cartoon mascot racist, and whether it was appropriate for the museum gift shop to sell “Latina Power” merchandise. Hartig deflected both questions, saying she had no control over what the store stocks.

The Same List Got a Sister Museum in Trouble in 2020

This is not new territory for the Smithsonian. In July 2020, its National Museum of African American History and Culture posted a graphic titled “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States” as part of an online series called “Talking About Race.”

That chart assigned hard work, self-reliance, delayed gratification, punctuality and politeness to “white dominant culture.” The backlash was fast and came from both directions. Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro mocked it. Newsweek ran a piece headlined about rational thinking and hard work being cast as white values. The museum pulled the graphic within about a day, saying only that it did not contribute to the discussion it had intended. An analysis from the American Enterprise Institute later noted the whole chart rested on a single footnote citing an unreviewed one-page PDF.

The graphic Gill held up this week carries a nearly identical title: “Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture in the United States.” The institution never fully retired the framework. It just moved to a different building on the National Mall.

Two Museums, One Recycled Definition of Whiteness

The National Museum of African American History and Culture and the National Museum of American History are separate institutions under the same Smithsonian umbrella, with different directors and different collections. The overlap in language between what one disowned and what the other still references is the story Gill’s clip actually tells.

The traits both versions of the document flag as markers of white culture read almost like a checklist:

• Politeness
• Objectivity and “rational, linear thinking”
• Hard work as the key to success
• The nuclear family, with a wife and two to three kids, as the “ideal social unit”
• A blonde, thin “Barbie” beauty standard

Hartig never disputed that the language exists. She disputed only that her museum wrote it.

An Executive Order Built the Subcommittee That Caught Her

This hearing did not happen in a vacuum. On March 27, 2025, President Trump signed Executive Order 14253, titled “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” The order directs agencies to remove improper ideology from Smithsonian museums, its education centers and the National Zoo.

A White House fact sheet issued the same day laid out the mechanics. The order directs Vice President JD Vance, who sits on the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents, to push Congress toward appropriations language that would bar funding for exhibits that divide Americans by race. It also calls for restoring monuments removed since 2020 and for excluding transgender recognition from the American Women’s History Museum.

By August 2025, the administration had sent Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch III a letter demanding a comprehensive internal review of eight museums, with content corrections expected within 120 days. The National Museum of American History had already removed references to Trump’s first-term impeachments from one exhibit that same month. In May 2025, Kim Sajet resigned as director of the National Portrait Gallery after Trump said he was firing her.

On July 4, 2026, the White House Domestic Policy Council published a 162-page report accusing Smithsonian leadership of shifting the institution’s mission toward what it called extreme political activism. Gill’s hearing landed a little more than two weeks after that report, inside a subcommittee whose own name, Delivering Government Efficiency, signals exactly the kind of institutional audit this exchange produced.

Why Kimmel and Colbert Won’t Touch This Clip

Fox News’ Gutfeld! has featured Gill’s clips in its panel segments. Broadcast late night has not touched them, even though the footage is objectively funny in the way a real, unscripted political gaffe is funny.

The ratings gap between the two lanes of television comedy has been widening all year. Gutfeld! averaged 3.49 million total viewers in March 2026, according to Nielsen data tracked by the industry site LateNighter, its largest audience among every late-night program measured. Back in January, Colbert’s Late Show averaged 2.65 million total viewers and Kimmel drew 2.46 million, with Fallon trailing at 1.22 million.

Late night’s other recent stumble came from a different direction entirely. The site’s earlier coverage of a monologue backlash over on-air violence remarks showed the format is already fighting to hold its footing before a single Smithsonian clip enters the conversation.

The avoidance isn’t limited to Gill. Daily Show host Jon Stewart drew his own viral clip on July 21 for downplaying the more radical wing of the Democratic Socialists of America, a socialist political organization with growing influence in Democratic primaries.

Generally, their crazy ideas aren’t where the energy is.

Stewart said of the group’s fringe positions, arguing the real energy behind DSA sits with economic populism rather than its more extreme planks. The clip, like Gill’s, circulated widely on social media without making it into a network monologue.

The Smithsonian’s Next 120 Days

The administration’s internal review letter gave museums a 120 day window to begin content corrections after the August 2025 request, a clock that has already run out once and been renewed through subsequent reviews tied to the 250th anniversary push. Whether the Mass Action Toolkit gets pulled, edited or left untouched has not been announced by the museum.

Hartig did not commit to removing the document during the hearing. The subcommittee did not set a public deadline for a follow-up. The Smithsonian’s press office has not issued a statement responding to the exchange as of this writing.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Smithsonian’s Mass Action Toolkit?

It is a reference document Hartig testified her museum has used since roughly 2019 or 2020, though she said the National Museum of American History did not create it. It includes a graphic naming politeness and objectivity as traits of white culture.

Did the Smithsonian remove a similar chart before?

Yes. In July 2020, the National Museum of African American History and Culture pulled a graphic called “Aspects and Assumptions of Whiteness in the United States” within about a day of public criticism from figures across the political spectrum.

What does Executive Order 14253 require of the Smithsonian?

Signed March 27, 2025, it directs the removal of what the administration calls improper, divisive or anti-American ideology from Smithsonian museums, orders a push for appropriations restrictions, and directs the restoration of monuments removed since 2020.

How large is the Smithsonian Institution?

Founded nearly 180 years ago, the Smithsonian operates 17 museums plus the National Zoo in Washington, D.C., and two additional museums in New York, drawing about 17 million visitors a year.

Has Fox’s Gutfeld! covered the Gill hearing clips?

Yes, the program has incorporated Gill’s clips into its panel discussion segments, a contrast commentators have drawn against the silence from ABC, CBS and NBC’s late-night lineups.