Trump fires director of the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery
31. May 2025
President Trump is terminating the head of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery, continuing his aggressive moves to reshape the federal government’s cultural institutions.
Mr. Trump announced Friday on his Truth Social platform that he was ousting Director Kim Sajet, calling her a “highly partisan person, and a strong supporter of DEI, which is totally inappropriate for her position.”
Sajet, a Dutch citizen raised in Australia, was appointed to the post in 2013 by former President Barack Obama. She had previously served as president of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery 
Mr. Trump has repeatedly criticized the national network of museums and cultural centers as leftist and anti-American.
In March, the president signed an executive order targeting funding for programs at the Smithsonian Institution that contain what he characterized as “divisive, race-centered ideology.”
That order tasked Vice President JD Vance, who serves on the Smithsonian Institution’s Board of Regents, with overseeing efforts to “remove improper ideology” from all areas of the institution, including its museums, education and research centers and the National Zoo.
In February, he also ousted the leadership of the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, which is part of the Smithsonian Institution, dismissing the chairman and president and replacing most of the board with loyalists, who then voted Mr. Trump the new chairman.