Rep. Brandon Gill, R-Texas, is a freshman congressman known for his viral moments at Capitol Hill hearings. He had another such moment Tuesday as he sweetly, but devastatingly, dissected the director of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History over her woke stewardship of the taxpayer-funded entity.
Shortly after the exchange, Gill spoke with Tony Kinnett, host of “The Tony Kinnett Cast” to discuss not only the hearings, but also the work the congressman has done “to save the country.”
From Smithsonian Institution to a Marxist Institution
Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing was titled, “Rewriting American History: Examining the Smithsonian’s Efforts to Reshape the Past.”
Bringing up his own role as a former science teacher, and having been “very well-acquainted with the Smithsonian,” Kinnett noted that “they have changed a lot of their operational procedures in the last 25 to 30 years.”
Kinnett asked Gill what is being found out “now that we’re not just kind of peeking in the windows from the outside, but actually getting a look at the foundation?”
“The reality is that the Smithsonian Institution has been transformed really over the past decade or so and has been just steeped in far-left, Marxist ideas,” Gill said.
He went onto list examples, including promoting exhibitions with “transgenders wearing bondage gear” at the Museum of American History.
“Normal people don’t want to see this kind of stuff, certainly not whenever you’re around children,” Gill made clear, while warning that woke ideology permeates the entire Smithsonian.
“You also see all kinds of DEI-infused into the organization, promoting people who are, you know, the transgender Guatemalan whoever over promoting the Founding Fathers of this country, promoting and insinuating that illegal aliens should have the right to vote in American elections,” the congressman said.
“You see exhibits that do that,” Gill continued. “You see them trying to stop Americans from using terms like ‘illegal aliens’ and instead use ‘undocumented citizens.’” The examples, he said, “really go on and on and on.”
“But it’s not just the exhibits, it’s their civic engagement as well. And some of the publications that they put out where the Smithsonian Institution has promoted illegal alien activists who are explicitly working to change elections in the United States,” Gill said.
The congressman referred to an effort to impact sheriff’s race a few years ago, which the Smithsonian Institution “highlighted them as… participants in American in democracy,” which he and Kinnett both agreed was “insane.”
“The American people are so sick of” these examples, Gill declared. “Seeing what should be an institution that really promotes the grandeur of the greatest country in the world, in fact, being one that actively works against American values and promotes a moral system that so many Americans find repugnant.”
Kinnett highlighted that this is especially the case with federally-funded institutions with civic engagement sections “that are meant to engage the civilians of the United States, so that for accountability, for education, for showing you where your tax dollars are going, using that to weigh in and advertise activism on the far left and even, again, foreign influence in the country.”
Taking Down the Director of the National Museum of American History
Kinnett described congressional hearings as “boxing matches,” and Tuesday’s House Oversight Committee hearing on the Smithsonian was no exception as Gill questioned Anthea M. Hartig, the director of the National Museum of American History.
Gill said Hartig did not deny the museum’s intentions.
“They’ve explicitly moved the organization in the direction of social justice,” Gill shared, and, as Kinnett himself pointed out, “it’s no accident.”
Those at the Smithsonian are “looking at history through the lens of social justice as an activist lens… that we are active participants in history,” Gill continued.
“If you’re not an activist, then you’re not a true citizen or whatever, which is just nonsense,” Kinnett added. Gill agreed emphasizing it’s “genuinely insane.”
“But you also see them promoting all the same kind of woke ideas that every institution, you know, in the early 2020s was pushing,” the congressman continued.
He noted he was able to ask Hartig “basic questions about some of the stuff that they had been promoting.”
That exchange broke the Internet Tuesday.
Gill brought up “an anti-racist toolkit,” which “stipulated the different components of a white supremacist culture.” Components included politeness, being on time, and adherence to objectivity.
“So, I just asked [Hartig] if she believes that the goal of history should be to be objective,” Gill shared. She ultimately responded “yes.”
“So, I asked her if her goal then, according to her own materials, is to promote a white supremacist culture. And, I think according to her own materials, it is,” Gill said.
He reminded her during the hearing, as she tried to claim that she was “unfamiliar” with that part of the toolkit, that it was “under [her] leadership” it was used.
One exhibit even referenced Mickey Mouse as representing “vestiges of longstanding traditions of blackface minstrelsy.”
Hartig had just acknowledged a moment before, though, that “Mickey Mouse is not racist” and then tried to dance around whether or not Mickey Mouse and what the character is rooted in is racist. “It’s not for me to determine what’s problematic. It’s determined to me what’s accurate,” she tried to claim.
Kinnett, who had to use that toolkit as a science administrator in Indianapolis, was appreciative of Gill “taking the scalpel to it.”
The Danger of Non-English Speaking Truckers
Kinnett also brought up the “huge safety hazard” of trucker drivers who are not proficient in English.
Gill has introduced the English Language Proficiency Act, which would “rescind English proficiency and civics examination exemptions and exceptions from U.S. naturalization law.”
Gill explained how there are certain exemptions to the English language requirement under the law currently in that “if you’re above 55 or 60 and you’ve been in the country for between 15 and 20 years, depending on your age, then you can be exempt from this requirement.”
The congressman’s bill rescinds that exemption, “just to ensure that if you are going to become a naturalized citizen of this country, you can actually engage and you can actually be a part of the body politic and not remain sort of in many ways, a foreigner on American soil,” he detailed.
SAVE America Act
Kinnett wondered “why weren’t we already doing these kinds of things,” including the SAVE America Act,
The Senate has yet to pass the SAVE America Act. The House, meanwhile, has passed the bill multiple times. It remains a priority for President Donald Trump.
“Do you think that it’s going to kind of suffer the same ‘let’s not get to hastiness’ of some Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. What are you seeing kind of in the future of that? And what’s it going to take for that whole boil to pop?” Kinnett asked.
Gill offered that they have “a lot of good legislation” they want to see passed. That includes hope for the SAVE America Act.
“I think we’ve got some mechanisms to get, at least as much of the SAVE America Act done as possible, before the midterms, which I think is a great thing for us to be doing,” he said.
Gill said he would “continue pushing both the SAVE America Act and the English Language Proficiency Act,” concurring that such bills are “common-sense” and ones that “the vast majority of our country should agree with.”
The congressman is “not really sure why there would be any real, good faith opposition to either one.”
In addition to “The Tony Kinnett Cast,” Gill also appears in “Sacred Honor,” a Daily Signal documentary honoring the nation’s 250th anniversary.
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
