Donald Trump won’t stop downplaying the horrors of slavery. What is he trying to distract from?

Donald Trump has, yet again, complained that historians call the US slave trade “horrible” while threatening to sue institutions that don’t comment on the”success” he says it brought.

The 79-year-old US president branded US museums, such as the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, as “woke” for highlighting the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade.

In a tirade on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Smithsonian is “out of control” and only discusses “how horrible our country is.”

“[It discusses] how bad slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been,” he wrote. “Nothing about success, nothing about brightness, nothing about the future. We are not going to allow this to happen.”

The Smithsonian is an institution that owns and operates an array of museums and research buildings across the eastern seaboard. It runs 17 free DC-based museums and zoos, as well as two museums in New York City.

One of its museums, the National Museum of African American History and Culture, has an exhibition dedicated to America’s involvement in the slave trade from the 15th century onwards, including exhibits, case studies, and first-person accounts of how it shaped the US.

It is believed that more than 15 million men, women, and children were victims of the transatlantic slave trade over the 400 years that it took place. The first voyage carrying enslaved Africans landed in the Americas in the early 1500s.

Trump said he plans to litigate what the institution is allowed to cover, claiming he has instructed lawyers to “go through the Museums” and censor exhibits considered “woke.”

“This country cannot be WOKE, because WOKE IS BROKE,” he went on. “We have the ‘HOTTEST’ country in the world, and we want people to talk about it, including in our museums.”

PragerU partnership

This isn’t the first time in this month alone that Trump has attempted to minimise the historical impact of the slave trade. Earlier in August, the Trump administration announced its plan to partner with PragerU – a media organisation that specialises in producing right-wing propaganda, some of which has claimed that slavery was “no big deal.”

Education secretary Linda McMahon announced an educational partnership with PragerU in June, shortly after the government cut funding to the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), during a launch event for its new Founders Museum exhibit, according to Vox.

PragerU has produced several clips about the slave trade, many of which push right-wing misinformation about its origins and impact. Most notable was a cartoon on Christopher Columbus under its PragerU Kids series, in which the Spanish explorer tells children that slavery was “no big deal” and “better than being killed.”

In 2024, Trump argued that the US Civil War – one of the drivers of which was disagreements over slave ownership – could have been “negotiated.“

The following year, Trump announced the government’s plan to change the names of seven military bases to honour soldiers who fought for the slavery-endorsing Confederates.

Many have speculated that Trump’s continued anti-woke campaigns are an attempt to distract his followers from his failure to release the so-called Epstein list. Many members of Trump’s own, previously loyal voter base, have turned on the president in recent months due to what they perceive to be a “cover up” of the “truth.”

The president and his administration have faced international scrutiny over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, a disgraced financier accused of trafficking minors for sex who was found dead in his prison cell in 2019.

A “client list” owned by the billionaire allegedly contains the names of some of Epstein’s most high-profile clients. Trump, who initially vowed to release the list, has since reversed his decision, calling it a “hoax.”

Trump’s close relationship with Epstein dates as far back as the 1980s, with many documented instances of the pair appearing together during social events, though Trump has not been accused of any wrongdoing as part of the investigations into his former friend.

In July, a birthday letter featuring a drawing of a naked woman and bearing the name “Donald” was uncovered. The letter includes the line: “Happy Birthday – and may every day be another wonderful secret.”