UNCONFIRMED: this account rests on Mother Jones's reporting, based on emails it reviewed and National Park Service employees who spoke anonymously, and has not been independently confirmed by another outlet.
National Park Service employees have been ordered to wear lapel pins promoting Freedom 250, the semi-private group Trump's advisers created to run the country's 250th-anniversary celebrations, according to a June 18, 2026 Mother Jones report based on emails it reviewed and NPS employees who spoke on condition of anonymity. The orders were given verbally by local supervisors in the preceding weeks, and three employees said supervisors told them refusing would bring an official reprimand. “When I asked if I would receive any disciplinary action if I chose not to wear the pin, I was told, 'Yes,'” one employee said. Mother Jones also reported the practice was not consistent: some staff said they had not been ordered to wear the pins.
The written guidance stopped short of a mandate. An April 13 memo from NPS associate director Charles Cuvelier, quoted by Mother Jones, said “all non-uniformed and administrative employees” were “highly encouraged” to wear the pins and told uniformed staff exactly where to place them. According to employees, superintendents and division chiefs who gave verbal orders said they were passing on instructions from Washington. The pins were supplied by Ace Specialties, a Louisiana company that advertises its Trump-campaign merchandise. An Interior Department spokesperson did not directly answer whether the pins were required and said they were given to employees “free of charge.”
Mother Jones wrote that Freedom 250 lets Trump stage events that “double as campaign rallies,” raise money privately from corporations and avoid disclosing taxpayer costs, and that employees likened wearing the pins to donning a MAGA hat. Tim Whitehouse of the watchdog group Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility said requiring staff to wear the trademarked Freedom 250 logo “is unlawful, full stop,” citing limits on partisan activity by federal employees. The account has not been independently confirmed by another outlet (see Million-Dollar Donors to Trump's 'Freedom 250' Fund Are Offered a Private Reception and 'Historic Photo' With the President; Schiff and Warren Open a Probe).
Correction (October 2, 2026): This entry quoted an employee as saying wearing the pins was “akin to donning a MAGA hat, or worse.” That phrase is Mother Jones's paraphrase of what employees said, not a direct quotation, and is now attributed accordingly. The entry also now notes that the April 13 written guidance only “highly encouraged” the pins and that the verbal orders were not reported agency-wide.