Talk of the Town
(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Monday issued an administrative stay of a lower court order that had rolled back access to mifepristone nationwide.
The move preserves access to the abortion pill without the need for an in-person doctor’s visit.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump on Wednesday is taking the first ride on the newly retrofitted Air Force One 747, which was donated by the Qatari royal family.
Trump, taking the retrofitted jet to North Dakota, touted it as “maybe the greatest commercial plane ever built.”
“I said to Boeing, ‘What’s the best one?’ They said this is the best plane ever built, and you’re going to have the privilege of flying it, and I have a privilege also of flying it,” Trump told reporters before boarding the jet — which is approximately 14 years old — at Joint Base Andrews.
ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Mary Bruce, who is traveling with Trump on his trip, asked him about the use of taxpayer dollars to modify the luxurious plane, which likely only will be used by him.
“Well, it cost very little relative to what it would cost if we did it a different way,” Trump said.
The Qatari-gifted jet worth $400 million raised questions from some lawmakers and ethics experts over the unprecedented foreign gift. But Trump on Wednesday gave credit to the Qatari government.
“Frankly, we couldn’t build a plane like this because we wouldn’t be willing to spend the kind of money necessary. They spent top dollar,” the president said.
The U.S. Air Force has been modifying the jet in Texas since September to meet the security, communications and other needs to transport the president. The Air Force had estimated it would cost less than $400 million to retrofit the gift.
The plane is to be used as the new Air Force One until shortly before Trump leaves office, at which time ownership of the plane will be transferred to the Donald J. Trump Presidential Library Foundation, sources familiar with the proposed arrangement have told ABC News.
Boeing was already contracted by the United State government to build a new fleet of jets that would serve as the next-generation Air Force One, expected to be delivered in 2028 around the time Trump leaves office.
Trump on Wednesday said the gifted plane was needed, citing the age of the past jet.
“Our Air Force One was 35, 36 years old, and it would be parked next to the new ones like this, and it really didn’t look appropriate for our country. So we’re very proud of this,” Trump said.
Trump is traveling to North Dakota to participate in a Freedom 250 Train Ride and Welcome Ceremony and to tour the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library before delivering remarks in Medora.
“I’m excited about the first flight. It’s something nobody’s ever seen anything like it, even you people, with all your experience and all of your talent, you will never see anything like this,” Trump said just before his departure. “So, they just completed it. They made it appropriate for a president, that means the security and all of the different bells and whistles they put on. Very complex stuff, but it’s really quite something, and this is a plane that the United States of America should have.”
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(WASHINGTON) — The White House released a scathing 162-page report accusing the Smithsonian Institution of engaging in “extreme political activism” and presenting “a radical view of American history.”
The report, which was published on Saturday, July 4, particularly took aim at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), accusing its leadership of adopting “an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.”
The report accuses the museum of “anti-White activism,” “illegal alien activism,” and “transgender activism.” It also includes many photos of materials the White House has identified as problematic.
Asked about the report, a spokesperson for the Smithsonian, which oversees 21 museums, galleries and the national zoo, told ABC News that the institution remains committed to impartial learning.
“For more than 180 years, the Smithsonian has served the American public with nonpartisan and independent scholarship, and we remain committed to doing so,” the spokesperson said on Sunday.
In his most recent public comments, Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch told NBC’s “Meet the Press” in an interview that aired Sunday morning that the institution is “in pursuit of the promise of America.”
The report, which was published by the White House’s Domestic Policy Council, comes amid an ongoing White House review of the Smithsonian as well as a separate internal review launched by the Smithsonian into its own exhibits and processes. Asked about the status of the internal review, a spokesperson for the Smithsonian did not comment.
The White House review was launched in response to President Donald Trump’s March 27, 2025 executive order, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.”
The executive order directed Vice President J.D. Vance, in consultation with the president’s advisers on domestic policy, “to remove improper ideology” from Smithsonian institutions, arguing that materials that cast America in a “negative light” have no place in federal cultural institutions.
“The serious concerns raised in this report are not about a few exhibits or a few controversial labels,” the report says. “As it stands today, it would benefit most Americans, especially parents bringing their children for a tour, if the Smithsonian’s flagship history museum had a label at every entrance that reads: ‘Warning: the exhibits in this museum were prepared by people who don’t want you to love your country.'”
What’s in the report?
The report includes dozens of examples of exhibits and materials in exhibits that the White House has determined to be examples of “radical activism.”
For instance, the report highlights an exhibit titled “Many Voices, One Nation,” and claims that its contents attempt “to instill within visitors its belief that migration and immigration, including the granting of citizenship to illegal aliens, is a defining modern-day civil rights and human liberty issue.”
The report also takes issue with displays about transgender people, including an exhibit titled “Girlhood” that profiled transgender media personality and LGBTQ+ rights advocate Jazz Jennings.
“One of the clearest examples of NMAH’s radical ideology is its refusal to correctly identify or define what a woman is,” the report states — reinforcing language from Trump’s January 2025 executive order, which outlined that this administration’s policy would be to “recognize two sexes, male and female” based on biology.
Overall, the report takes issue with materials addressing “white supremacy,” “racism” and the country’s history of “slavery,” “conquest” and “exclusion.”
The report claims that the museum fails to substantially represent the founders of the United States and that the exhibits cast America as “a problematic country irredeemably conceived, founded by deeply flawed men, and still operating today as an instrument of systemic racism and oppression.”
Sarah Weicksel, executive director of the American Historical Association, previously told ABC News that the White House is seeking to create “a narrowly sanitized version of the American past” at federal cultural institutions “that fits comfortably” into Trump’s executive order.
The American Historical Association (AHC), which represents 10,000 historians across various educational and cultural institutions in the U.S., has publicly defended the Smithsonian and urged the White House to “respect and value the expertise of the historians, curators, and other museum professionals who conduct the review and revision of historical content according to the professional standards of our discipline.”
ABC News reached out to AHA for further comment.
What comes next?
The report does not specify action points related to correcting the so-called “activism,” but does reference the fact that the Smithsonian Institution is largely funded by the federal government and U.S. taxpayers.
“That means the public has a right to expect that it will operate as a faithful steward of the Nation’s historic and cultural heritage, not as a vehicle for ideological campaigns,” the report says.
According to the Smithsonian Institution, which oversees 21 museums and galleries and the national zoo, it currently receives more than $1 billion in federal funding — about 62% of its funding — and the remainder of the funds come from “trust funds or non-federal funds, including contributions from private sources” and revenues from Smithsonian enterprises.
Bunch has been leading the Smithsonian since 2019 but the institution is overseen by a 17-member governing body, known as the Board of Regents. Bunch, who met with Trump at the White House on Aug. 28, 2025, repeatedly affirmed the Smithsonian’s “independence” from political influence.
Referencing his conversations with Trump in a Sept. 3, 2025 letter to the institution’s employees, Bunch underscored the independence of the Smithsonian, saying it was “paramount.” He also told employees that the institution remains committed to telling the “American story” and “will always be, a place that welcomes all Americans and the world.”
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(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Mint announced Wednesday that $1 coins featuring President Donald Trump’s likeness have entered circulation and can be purchased on its website.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
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