On Tuesday, the Trump Administration launched a review of select Smithsonian museums to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism, remove divisive or partisan narratives, and restore confidence in our shared cultural institutions.” The eponymous host of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 was not happy about the move and claimed the move was insulting to everyone who has fought and died for this country.

During a conversation with professor and former NAACP President Cornell William Brooks, Cooper declared, “Well, it's also I mean, I just have to say, insulting to the memory of people who fought and died for this country. And I'm not just talking about those who fought in wars overseas. I'm talking about, you know, Americans, enslaved people who died in this country, who were lynched, who were chased by mobs. I mean, the list goes on and on.”

Cooper also had Brooks on back in March when President Trump first issued an executive order related to the Smithsonian. Nothing has changed. There is still no evidence that the administration seeks to erase racism or slavery from the Smithsonian. The administration’s definition of “divisive or partisan narratives” is “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness is reconstructed as inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed [emphasis added].”

However, Brooks was not on to disagree with Cooper, “That's right, so, you had thousands of Black people who fought to ensure that this country could be the country that it is in the Civil War, you had African-Americans fighting to free themselves and to free the country. And in every war. The point being here is the bravery, the sacrifice, the commitment of Americans is being whitewashed by this President and to no good end.”

He added, “And to be very clear here, what happens is we run the risk that the White House runs the risk of both wrongly telling the story and half telling the story, and by half telling the story, we get one-tenth of the history and one-one-hundredth of the truth. And that is—it's a shame, it's unconscionable. And yet this White House is again attempting to engage in a kind of cultural Southern manifesto, which is to say, weaponizing history, weaponizing culture on the basis of race to divide Americans based on race, but also divide our history in terms of history that is accurate, that is respected by historians and this is false.”

What is false is The 1619 Project view of history that says the Revolutionary War was fought to protect slavery and that America is a systemically racist country. Ensuring that false version of American history stays out of America’s public schools and taxpayer-funded museums is a good thing.

Here is a transcript for the August 12 show:

CNN Anderson Cooper 360

8/12/2025

8:12 PM ET

ANDERSON COOPER: Well, it's also I mean, I just have to say, insulting to the memory of people who fought and died for this country. And I'm not just talking about those who fought in wars overseas. I'm talking about, you know, Americans, enslaved people who died in this country, who were lynched, who were chased by mobs. I mean, the list goes on and on.

CORNELL WILLIAM BROOKS: That's right, so, you had thousands of Black people who fought to ensure that this country could be the country that it is in the Civil War, you had African-Americans fighting to free themselves and to free the country. And in every war. The point being here is the bravery, the sacrifice, the commitment of Americans is being whitewashed by this President and to no good end.

And to be very clear here, what happens is we run the risk that the White House runs the risk of both wrongly telling the story and half telling the story, and by half telling the story, we get one-tenth of the history and one-one-hundredth of the truth. And that is — it's a shame, it's unconscionable. And yet this White House is again attempting to engage in a kind of cultural Southern manifesto, which is to say, weaponizing history, weaponizing culture on the basis of race to divide Americans based on race, but also divide our history in terms of history that is accurate, that is respected by historians and this is false.