Ken Burns

And it's an incredibly short-sighted thing.

This is a network, in the case of PBS, that had William F. Buckley, a noted conservative's show on for 32 years.

And that show's still on, still moderated by a conservative, but because some people did not like certain aspects of it, the idea that it had to be defunded, it will mostly hurt.

WHYY will survive.

I will too.

We'll figure out ways to overcome that.

More people will join and become members in Philadelphia, and that will be a good thing.

But the losers will be the rural stations.

the poor rural areas that will now be news deserts.

No one will be covering the school board or the city council.

There will not only be the good children's and prime time, but there won't be classroom of the air and continuing education and emergency signals and homeland security things.

This is, you know, this is a big deal.

And places will lose what I think is the, in PBS that I know, and NPR by extension,

the Declaration of Independence applied to communications.

That's right.

I have been, Terry, engaged with trying to tell the stories about this complex American project for 50 years.

And whether it's about the Brooklyn Bridge or the national parks or the Shakers, but strangely, perhaps perversely, in the study of war, no more do I feel, even in things that are so drenched in contradiction and hypocrisy and blood,

Does that authentic patriotism that I think you're talking about come out and raise the kind of questions within themselves and between themselves that you've asked in that regard?

Very sincere, basic, sometimes gut-wrenching questions.

What would I have been?