Hi, it's Terry Gross. Before we start today's show, I want to say a few words about public media.

It's been in the news a lot lately because federal funding for it was eliminated earlier this year.

But it's the fact that NPR is public media that enables fresh air and all of NPR's podcasts to be unique and to be there for you.

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 said that local public media stations should be

responsive to their communities.

To this day, that's what NPR member stations are doing in so many towns and regions

where newspapers have stopped publishing.

We're providing news and information to everyone. Even as digital pay walls rise elsewhere,

we offer these services for free, regardless of anyone's ability to pay. At NPR, we still believe

in these core commitments, but the loss of

federal funding is creating major challenges for NPR and all public radio stations. As we move into

this uncharted future together, we know that you will not let the service that has been here

for you all these years falter. We rely on your support

to bring you fresh air now more than ever. This year, we've continued to bring you

interviews with investigative journalists who have uncovered important stories that otherwise

may have never been revealed about our government and the state of our democracy,

as well as interviews with authors, actors, directors, scientists, health experts, religion scholars,

and more. Who knows what surprises await us in 2026? Thank you if you already go the extra

mile as an NPR Plus supporter.

If not, you can join the Plus community, get a bunch of perks like bonus episodes and more from across NPR's podcasts, including fresh airs, and support public media by signing up for NPR Plus at plus.npr.org. That's plus.npr.org. Thank you.

This is fresh air. I'm Dave Davies. It hasn't happened much in recent years, but there have been

times when the U.S. economy has experienced the kind of convulsive upheaval

...