Apr. 9, 2026, 5:39 PM EDT

The Trump administration’s fragile white ego is in focus yet again thanks to newly proposed changes for an exhibit in Philadelphia centered on George Washington and slavery.

The administration is being sued by the city over its efforts to whitewash Washington’s history of slave ownership from the President’s House Site, the nation’s first official presidential residence. The push has been put on hold by a judge who compared it to the censorship depicted in George Orwell’s book “1984.”

The attempted alteration of the exhibit came after a Trump executive order demanded a review of national parks and museums to bar any displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Last year, Trump also lobbed a puerile complaint that Smithsonian musuems focus too much on “how bad” slavery was.

And all that kvetching provides context for the changes that Trump’s administration is seeking to impose at the President’s House Site — alterations that The Philadelphia Inquirer said places the first president’s slave ownership “in a more sympathetic light.”

The Inquirer flagged government renderings showing plans for new historical panels to be installed at the site, and it seems clear that the administration’s goal is to make Washington out to be a loving patriot or conscientious objector to slavery, rather than a racist slave driver.

First, note what the Inquirer said has been removed:

The panels taken down by the Park Service in January included displays titled ‘The Dirty Business of Slavery’ and ‘Life Under Slavery,’ as well as illustrations about the Fugitive Slave Act and Ona Judge, who was enslaved by Washington and later escaped.

So the administration wants to omit detailed references to Washington’s slavery history — which Black activists fought for years to include — while also promoting a whitewashed narrative that he was a fundamentally moral man despite the whole “claiming dominion over other human beings” thing. Per the Inquirer:

For instance, on one panel titled ‘Presidents Washington and Adams on Slavery,’ the Trump administration writes that ‘Caught between his private doubts about slavery and his public responsibilities as president, George Washington navigated a nation deeply divided over slavery.’

‘Privately, George Washington often expressed discomfort with the institution and a desire to see it abolished,’ the panel continued. ‘Yet as a Virginia plantation owner, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it.’

And another example:

And later in the same panel: ‘Slaves living in the President’s House experienced a greater modicum of autonomy than elsewhere in the South such as to explore the city and sometimes even attend the theater, with Washington buying the tickets.’

When a censorship regime like Trump’s sees fit to tout a slave owner’s generosity — and the “greater modicum of autonomy” he purportedly granted to those he subjected to brutal bondage and forced labor — it leaves little doubt that the fundamental goal is to sanitize history, rather than teach it thoroughly.

A White House spokesperson told the Inquirer that the administration wants to acknowledge “the full breadth of our nation’s history” and that “no piece of history should be washed away.”

But “whitewashing” truly is the most apt descriptor for a plan that includes touting George Washington as some kind of selfless, principled gift-giver while brushing past, or deliberately omitting, details about his well-documented — and extremely lucrative — history of enslaving human beings.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

Apr. 9, 2026, 5:30 PM EDT

The publication of a report showing the Covid vaccine is highly effective at reducing hospitalizations has been delayed by the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The Washington Post first reported the delayciting two scientists familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed the delay to MS NOW.

Dr. Jay Bhattacharya — an economist who advocated against vaccines during the Covid-19 pandemic and who now helms the National Institutes of Health — took issue with the report’s methodology and held back on publication, the spokesperson said. Bhattacharya was acting director of the CDC at the time and has since been granted broad authority over the agency as the Trump administration searches for a permanent director.

“Dr. Bhattacharya expressed concerns about the observational method used in this study to calculate vaccine effectiveness, and the scientific team is working to address these concerns,” Emily G. Hilliard, the HHS spokesperson, told MS NOW.

The report was slated to publish in a March issue of the CDC’s flagship journal, the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the scientists told the Post. But Bhattacharya delayed its release despite a study that relied on the same methodology — examining the vaccination status of sick people who sought care at hospitals and emergency rooms — having been published in the CDC journal a week earlier, according to the Post. That study focused on the efficacy of fly vaccines.

Hilliard did not respond to a question about whether it is common practice for political appointees to review independent research studies that fall outside of their expertise, but said that “it’s routine for CDC leadership to review and flag concerns about MMWR journal papers, especially relating to their methodology, leading up to planned publication.”

Department of Human and Health Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a prominent vaccine skeptic who founded the anti-vaccine nonprofit Children’s Health Defense before President Donald Trump appointed him to lead the country’s health and research agencies. Last year, Kennedy overhauled the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which makes recommendations about vaccine policy. He fired all 17 members of the committee and included vaccine skeptics among the replacements.

The panel has since scrapped recommendations that healthy children and pregnant women get vaccinated against Covid. The CDC previously recommended Covid vaccines for everyone age 6 months and older.

The revised panel has also rolled back the decades-old guidance that all newborns get vaccinated against hepatitis B — an incurable disease with deadly consequences when contracted in the first few months of life.

The Food and Drug Administration, another agency under the purview of HHS, generated concern among medical experts and pharmaceutical companies when it refused to review Moderna’s application for approval of a new flu vaccine that used the same mRNA technology that made the Covid vaccine possible. The agency reversed course after Moderna amended its application and met with regulators in February.

Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter covering national politics and policy for MS NOW. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at SydneyCarruth.46 or follow her work on X and Bluesky.