By Kit Maher, CNN

(CNN) — President Donald Trump met with Smithsonian Institution Secretary Lonnie Bunch III for lunch at the White House on Thursday.

“The White House lunch meeting was productive and cordial,” a White House official told CNN.

The meeting, which was first reported by The New York Times, comes as Trump has directed his attorneys to conduct a review of museums, claiming the Smithsonian is “out of control” and that “everything discussed is how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been.”

The Trump administration earlier this month said it would be conducting an internal review of Smithsonian Institution materials and exhibits in an effort to comply with Trump’s directive about what should and shouldn’t be displayed.

Lindsey Halligan, who is leading the administration’s review, also attended the White House lunch, the official said.

Last week, Halligan told Fox News that Smithsonian museums have “an overemphasis on slavery,” arguing “there should be more of an overemphasis on how far we’ve come since slavery.”

CNN has reached out to the Smithsonian Institution — the organization that runs the nation’s major public museums — for comment on the meeting.

Bunch has served as the institution’s secretary since 2019 — and is the first African American to hold the position. He previously served as the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

“I am very, very proud of Lonnie Bunch,” Trump said in 2017 during remarks at the museum, where he also said he was “deeply proud” of the museum “that honors the millions of African American men and women who built our national heritage.”

In an interview with the New York Times in 2022, Bunch said that ambivalence around slavery, including from African Americans, made it necessary to make slavery the “heart of the museum.”

“Every nation is ambivalent about slavery,” Bunch told the Times. “The people of color are ambivalent: Is this something to be embarrassed by? Is this something that is better left unsaid? So basically, I knew that slavery had to be at the heart of the museum.”

The White House last Thursday shared examples of why Trump has called the Smithsonian Institution “out of control,” pointing to an oil painting of refugees crossing the border wall; a stop-motion drawing animation of Anthony Fauci’s career and an infographic describing “aspects & assumptions of whiteness” in American culture, which the National Museum of African American History and Culture removed and apologized for 5 years ago after facing backlash.

When pressed on the infographic about “whiteness” at a 2023 congressional hearing, Bunch said he agreed it was “wrong.”

“I think that the document itself was wrong and flawed,” Bunch said. “I do think, however, it’s important for the Smithsonian to help the country grapple with questions of race. So, I’m not going to run away from that.”

The White House also pointed to comments by former National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet to The New York Times in 2022 about how portraits and busts were long limited to the “the wealthy, the pale and the male” and how the gallery was trying to change that.

Other examples the White House pointed to include the display of the “Intersex-Inclusive Progress Pride” flag outside the American History Museum and other Smithsonian campuses, and programming at the National Museum of the American Latino that highlighted “Latinas and Latinos with Disabilities.”

CNN’s Piper Hudspeth Blackburn contributed to this report.

This story has been updated with additional details.

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