FIRST ON FOX — A Black conservative filmmaker is challenging the Smithsonian to explain why his documentary questioning progressive views on race has yet to secure a public screening at its African American history museum, which has previously showcased films examining systemic racism.

“White Guilt,” directed and co-produced by Eli Steele, is based on a book by his father, noted Black conservative academic Shelby Steele. The younger Steele, who is Black, Jewish and deaf, has drawn on his own experiences to challenge prevailing views on race and identity.

The documentary argues that White guilt over America’s racial history, along with fears of being labeled racist, has pushed institutions to prioritize racial identity over individual merit.

The dispute comes as the Smithsonian faces mounting pressure from President Donald Trump and his administration over allegations of ideological bias in its portrayal of American history. The White House has accused the institution of promoting progressive narratives and threatened to restrict federal support, escalating a broader battle over whose perspectives are represented in the nation’s museums.

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Steele provided communications to Fox News Digital showing that the museum declined his proposed screening dates and offered him a private rental option instead. The filmmaker says the museum has yet to respond to his request for alternative dates for a public screening.

“The film is professionally shot, the quality is there. A comparable film that they’ve shown is ’13th,’ which itself is a very controversial film,” Steele told Fox News Digital. “So that’s the big question we have here: Do we have viewpoint diversity or do we not? Do you have to be the right kind of Black to be shown at the Smithsonian?”

“That’s the big question that we have to address in this room. But I hope that it’s not about any of that,” he continued.

The filmmaker has questioned the apparent decision to not screen his film, given that the museum has allowed numerous other films with more progressive messages to have public screenings, though stopped short of accusing the museum of ideological discrimination.

“13th,” the film mentioned by Steele, is featured in educational and public programming at the NMAAHC. It argues that the 13th Amendment’s exception permitting forced labor as punishment for a crime enabled racial control to persist after slavery by allegedly criminalizing Black behavior.

Other films shown by the NMAAHC in public screenings include such titles as “Hidden Figures” in 2016, “I Am Not Your Negro” in 2017 and “Faith in Blackness: An Exploration of AfroLatine Spirituality” in 2023, the latter presented in partnership with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival.

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While Steele was hesitant to speculate as to why his film hadn’t been scheduled for a public screening, other Black conservatives saw the museum’s handling of his request as part of a familiar pattern.

“Academia is not what it was years ago when I went to graduate school, when it touted itself as a marketplace for ideas,” Carol Swain, a retired Black conservative professor and prominent media commentator, told Fox News Digital. “There would always be a token conservative included. And I have found over the years that conservatives were tolerated less and less. And if they were black, at some point they were not tolerated at all.”

“When you look at an institution like the Smithsonian, that’s supposed to belong to all of us, to all Americans, you would think that it would be open to divergent views,” Swain, who spent her career at institutions such as Princeton and Vanderbilt, continued. “That is not what we find.”

Wall Street Journal columnist and Manhattan Institute senior fellow Jason Riley shared a similar perspective.

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“I think the type of people who run the Smithsonian Institute are part of the broader liberal intelligentsia in this country that prevails in academia, prevails and the media. And this is not a point of view. That they take kindness to,” Riley told Fox News Digital. “In fact, this film takes some rather direct shots at that group of people. So there might be some self-interest here. It might cut a little too close to these folks.”

“I do think that they have a vested interest in putting forward a narrative out there to advance a political agenda. And I think that’s what’s really going on here at places like the Smithsonian,” Riley continued, citing his experience as a Black commentator who has spent his career sparring with White liberals.

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Both Riley and Swain argued that viewing the film could do a service to White progressives by challenging their assumptions about race and forcing them to confront whether their preferred policies are actually helping Black America. Riley stated that the Black Americans who regularly attend the NMAAHC could benefit from Steele’s film as it challenges the popular assumption that they are blocked from social mobility by virtue of their race.

In recent months, the Smithsonian has been the target of criticism from Republican elected officials, including the president, who argue that the institution has allowed political bias to overshadow the neutral presentation of history, an argument some within the organization reject, claiming that they are simply presenting the good and the bad aspects of the American story. As part of its effort to pressure the Smithsonian over what it describes as ideological bias, the Trump administration has threatened to restrict federal support, including discretionary grants and cooperation from federal agencies.

While Riley and Swain raised questions about the Smithsonian’s motives, the museum told Steele that his proposed dates were unavailable but did not explain whether it would consider alternative dates for a public screening, according to correspondence reviewed by Fox News Digital.

Steele and his team reached out to the Smithsonian in late August about a public screening of their film, receiving a response within the day directing them to fill out an event application form, according to correspondence reviewed by Fox News Digital. In early September, they submitted a completed application form and provided two possible dates for a screening.

About two weeks later, the NMAAHC responded by informing them that neither date was available for a public screening, according to the correspondence. After Steele’s team asked about alternatives, the museum offered them the option of renting space for a private screening at a quoted cost of $35,000, according to correspondence reviewed by Fox News Digital, rather than arranging a museum-sponsored public screening.

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When Steele and his team clarified that they wanted a public screening and signaled flexibility on their requested dates, they received no response from the museum, per correspondence reviewed by Fox News Digital.

“Answering email does not take that much time,” Steele told Fox News Digital.

“I watched the film last night. It’s a well-made and powerful representation of ideas that Shelby Steele has been developing over the last 40 years,” Glenn Loury, an African American professor at Brown University who has described himself as “conservative-leaning,” told Fox News Digital. “Those ideas — about how racial identity interacts with the pursuit of ‘black power’ and the quest for ‘white innocence’ in the West — are vividly illuminated through the film’s exploration of a number of exemplary cases.”

“The arguments advanced via Steele’s eloquent narration in the film are not beyond questioning, but they are invariably provocative and insightful,” he continued. “It would certainly be an appropriate use of the platform of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture to screen this documentary, as a means of provoking critical engagement with its themes from all corners of the political/ideological spectrum.”

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NMAAHC did not respond to a request for comment when reached by Fox News Digital.

“My father, Shelby Steele, was born into segregation and has spent decades examining how America has changed, how far we have come, and what still divides us. ‘White Guilt,’ drawing on his 2006 book, brings that work to the screen,” Steele said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “We approached the Smithsonian’s African American museum because we believe that conversation belongs there. Sharing his life’s work in a museum dedicated to the history he lived would mean a great deal to both of us.”

“Our proposal remains open, and we would appreciate an answer.”

Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Republican state House Speaker Lisa Demuth traded fire over Minnesota’s massive fraud scandal as they faced off for the first time on the debate stage in the race to replace embattled Gov. Tim Walz.

The race is unfolding against the backdrop of the state’s welfare assistance fraud scandal, which has attracted national attention for nearly a year and prompted Walz, a two-term Democrat, to abandon his 2026 re-election bid. The fraud schemes, involving pandemic-era social services, siphoned hundreds of millions, and potentially billions, of taxpayer dollars from federal and state programs in Minnesota.

Demuth is aiming to become the first Republican in twenty years to win a gubernatorial election in the blue-leaning Midwestern state. Polls indicate Klobuchar holding an upper single digit lead over Demuth, and the Fox News Power Rankings rate the race Likely Democrat.

Demuth, during the first half of the debate, repeatedly steered the conversation to the fraud scandal.

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“We have allowed a culture of waste and fraud to go on far too long and we can’t keep going this way,” she said, as she worked to link Klobuchar to Walz, who has taken full responsibility for the scandal.

“Klobuchar, referring to Walz, said, “I have been very clear. I would have caught that fraud. I would have done something about it. We have very different backgrounds.”

Demuth asked her rival, “You could have reached out to the governor and said I think we have a problem in Minnesota… Why didn’t you do more.”

And Demuth asked, “Why weren’t you at the hearings about fraud in your own Senate Judicial Committee hearing when we had Minnesotans who were concerned about fraud.”

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Klobuchar, pushing back, highlighted that “the minute that the fraud went public, I did something that was real….. I called the justice department and asked for more resources. The senator said her actions led to more federal prosecutors assigned to investigate the fraud scandal. “That’s doing the real work,” she emphasized.

Responding to Demuth’s claims of missing hearings, which Fox News Digital reported on earlier this year, Klobuchar said, “I’ve been at a dozen hearings where I’ve raised or asked questions about fraud. The particular hearing that was raised here was a subcommittee that I was not even on.”

Demuth also pledged to fire “all of the commissioners in the state of Minnesota” in order to start “fresh” after the fraud scandal.

The two candidates also sparred over healthcare, with Demuth pointing to Klobuchar’s support of ObamaCare as being tied to the rising healthcare costs in the state.

“We must recognize that our healthcare costs have exploded across the country and in Minnesota because of the Affordable Care Act,” Demuth said. “The senator said that it would bring the cost of our healthcare down, we could access whatever we needed and it would be more affordable. That is absolutely untrue where we find ourselves today.”

The two candidates, in what was billed as a business forum hosted by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, also took aim at each other over high gas prices, healthcare, paid family and medical leave, and efforts to cap insulin costs.

On state taxes, both seemed in agreement.

“Tax hikes are absolutely off the table for me,” Demuth emphasized.

Klobuchar said, “I’ve made clear I’m not going to increase taxes.” And she touted, “I’ve been willing to take on my own party on taxes in the past.”

Klobuchar launched her gubernatorial campaign in January, three weeks after Walz, who served as the Democrats’ 2024 vice presidential nominee, dropped his re-election bid.

Klobuchar, who was first elected to the Senate in 2006, won all four of her Senate elections by healthy margins, including a nearly 16-point re-election in 2024. Before serving in the Senate, Klobuchar was elected twice as county attorney in Hennepin County, Minnesota’s most populous. She also ran unsuccessfully for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination.

She captured nearly 90% of the vote in the August Democratic primary against a large field of longshot rivals.

Demuth, who was first elected to the Minnesota House in 2018, has served as GOP leader in the chamber since the start of 2023 and as speaker for the past year and a half,

In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Demuth topped a crowded field, defeated by 11-points second place finisher Mike Lindell, the My Pillow founder and former CEO who is a close ally of President Donald Trump and who joined the president in denying former President Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 White House race. Trump endorsed Lindell a month before the August 11 primary.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a potential 2028 presidential contender, drew criticism from across the political spectrum after pointing to the riots in France as a warning about wealth inequality and urging the U.S. to “listen to our young.”

“This is what happens when the nations let wealth and power accumulate in the hands of a few,” Khanna wrote in a post to X on Sunday evening.

Khanna’s post comes on the heels of nationwide demonstrations over the cost of living and public services that descended into violence, looting and arson in several French cities on Saturday, prompting critics to accuse the progressive Democrat of giving political legitimacy to the destruction.

Spencer Pratt, former mayoral candidate for Los Angeles, blasted what he saw as an attempt to side with rioters.

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“Of course Rohit Conman sees mass communist riots destroying businesses and historic buildings in Paris and lies about it as some noble ‘ask’ for justice,” Pratt wrote.

“These commies lie as easily as they breathe.”

The comment also drew criticism from Shannon Watts, a Democratic gun activist who, in recent months, has criticized the far-left portions of her party.

“If you’re a member of Congress who condemned the January 6 insurrection, you don’t get to excuse riots in France as a ‘cry for help.’ Political violence doesn’t become acceptable just because you sympathize with people committing it,” Watts wrote in a post of her own.

Still others warned Khanna against using the moment as a way to build political momentum.

“Ro Khanna has long sought to ride the rage wave to power,” Jonathan Turley, a political commentator and legal analyst, said.

“Khanna could indeed learn much from France. This is history repeating itself. That history, by the way, does not bode well for establishment figures who pander to the mob,” Turley added, giving a nod to the infamous French Revolution that targeted the country’s political and financial elite in a bloody crusade.

Planned demonstrations in France over the weekend quickly spiraled out of control on Saturday, leaving behind broken storefronts and fires in Paris.

French authorities said that by Sunday evening they had arrested nearly 2,400 people nationwide, including 855 in the Paris region. Nearly 1,000 police officers and gendarmes were injured, seven seriously, according to France’s Interior Ministry. One protester died after suffering cardiac arrest during demonstrations in Paris, authorities said.

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In Limoges, a fire that authorities said was deliberately set at the city hall caused significant damage to the historic building. Shops were looted in Paris, Bordeaux, Marseille, Lyon and other cities, while public buildings were vandalized or targeted by fires.

Authorities estimated that more than 550,000 people participated in demonstrations across France. Organizers put the figure at roughly 800,000.

Despite the mayhem, Khanna argued the moment should prompt American lawmakers to take younger voters’ political demands more seriously, especially on topics of equity.

“This is what happens when young people lose hope in their future. In America, let us listen to our young. We need an economic and political transformation. America’s Next New Deal,” Khanna wrote.

“From the high schools of France to the streets of Madrid to the universities of Tirana, young people are telling their governments the same thing: in an age of massive wealth inequality, they want a future they can believe in,” Khanna wrote.

But in the face of the backlash online, Khanna quickly clarified his stance in a follow-up post, noting that he did not support the destruction that had unfolded.

“I unequivocally condemn violence and vandalism. I have always championed my grandfather’s example of non-violent protest,” Khanna wrote, referencing his relative, Amarnath Vidyalankar, who was imprisoned for advocating for India’s independence in the early 1930s.

“Let us not be blind to the anger young people have against the unholy alliance of wealth and power. The billionaires buying politicians. The corruption,” Khanna added.

But even after issuing his clarifying statement, Khanna continued to face condemnation — even from figures like former Rep. George Santos, R-N.Y.

“These are not mere students… my friend, I regret to inform you, this is an invasion,” Santos wrote, referring to France’s high intake of refugees in recent years.

Khanna, responding to Santos, doubled down on his view.

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“George, is the lesson not to tackle the vast disparity here and young people’s hopelessness?” he asked.

Khanna’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Fox News Digital.

Bradford Benz contributed to this report