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Alive with Steve Burns

Introducing: Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know (feat. Ken Burns)

Alive with Steve Burns

Lemonada Media

Society & Culture

5.0588 Ratings

🗓️ 24 December 2025

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This week, we’re taking a deep breath for the holidays, so we’re sharing an episode of Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know. Hasan sits down with documentary legend Ken Burns for a conversation that feels a bit like American history class — if history class were funny, generous, and quietly profound. Ken joins Hasan to talk about his new film on the American Revolution, the stories we choose to tell about ourselves as a country, and why all our dads love him so much. It’s a warm, curious, and unexpectedly funny conversation about history, memory, and the people we turn to when we’re trying to understand who we are. If you want to hear more episodes, follow Hasan Minhaj Doesn’t Know wherever you get your podcasts or head to: https://lemonada.lnk.to/HasanMinhajDoesntKnowfd See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0

Lemonada

0:02.0

For nearly half a century, Ken Burns has told the story of America.

0:10.0

Its characters, its contradictions, its ideals, and its failures.

0:17.0

From the Civil War to World War II to Vietnam. And now with his new documentary

0:24.5

on the American Revolutionary War, Ken Burns has given dads across America countless hours

0:30.7

of television to watch alone on their sofas, wondering why they don't have a closer relationship

0:37.0

with their son.

0:38.8

As a documentary dad myself, I was so excited to talk to Ken that I kept interrupting him,

0:43.7

like a thirsty man on his first date.

0:46.0

Which is going to allow the British to capture Philadelphia, and they do.

0:49.8

So he makes mistakes from the stories of us.

0:53.3

Not just the U.S., but us.

0:55.3

And that's a big, big.

0:56.9

Can I show a map real quick?

0:58.0

We'll talk about something that's so good.

0:59.7

Locke said life, liberty, and property.

1:01.8

When Eisenhower, in the late term, says just like more perfect union is, process words.

1:08.8

And the other thing I want to say is,

1:10.7

and Ken has such an encyclopedic

1:12.3

knowledge that I honestly could have just let him go. I didn't even have to really be there at all.

1:20.0

But I was there. And if you want to make your dad proud, you will watch this entire interview,

1:26.0

including the ads, and then try to connect with your

...

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