Bunch told the crowd that telling the full, complicated truth about American history is an act of "great love" for the country, not an attack on it. He pushed back directly on accusations, tied to criticism from Trump, that the Smithsonian and its museums are being run by people who don't care about America.
"The notion that somehow this museum or any part of the Smithsonian is done by people who don't love America, don't care about America, is unbelievably wrong," Bunch said, according to the Guardian.
The moment lands as Bunch prepares to leave his post, putting a public exclamation point on a fight over how the country's most prominent cultural institution tells its own story. For staff and historians inside the museums, it was a vote of confidence. For visitors and the wider public, it raises a real question about who gets to decide which parts of history make it onto museum walls.