Carson1975

Ronald Reagan's Interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson

On December 24, 2024, Elon Musk posted on X (formerly Twitter) a short video of Ronald Reagan talking to Johnny Carson on the Tonight Show, adding only "Very Wise Words." The 7:43 clip went viral.
(The portions of the full video that are included in the clip will be emphasized in the transcript below.)

This clip was a portion of a 20+ minute Interview on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Reagan had just recently ended his terms as governor of California and would have just started recording his short-form radio show, as well as writing a syndicated newspaper column.

There seems to be some confusion in the Youtube video as to when this occurred. The video from the Reagan Foundation claims it was January 3, 1975, but sources such as Wikipedia, IMDB and the videos available from the Johnny Carson Youtube channel, indicate the video is from March 13, 1975. This fits the early discussion, in which Reagan jokes about having been "unemployed" for a couple months.

Transcript

Carson: My first guest tonight is, uh, rather a phenomenon on a political scene as a citizen politician. Making his first try for public office, he was elected California's 33rd governor in 1966 by a majority of something around over a million votes. And he held that office, as you know, for eight years. And he used to joke that in his earlier profession he used to ride off in a sunset with the words "The End" on his back. But there are those who would say that Ronald Reagan... that 1975 may only be the beginning. Would you all complete the former governor of California, Ronald Reagan.

(Applause)

Nice to see you.

Reagan: Nice to be here John. Nice of you to have me here after a little more than two months unemployment.

Carson: That's right, uh, how does it feel to be, uh, well you're not really unemployed now because I know you're doing a syndicated column and, um, for many who's been around 120 papers I think, and the radio show and on the lecture tour but how does it feel to be, I don't want to use the word, temporarily out of politics or not but we'll get into that later, uh, how's it feel to be away from Sacramento?

Reagan: Well it's doing what I'm doing I wanted to for a long time, it's very exciting and um there's mixed emotions when you step down there's always things that you had left undone that you'd like to have done but then uh all of a sudden the curtain's pulled and that chapter's over and uh...

Carson: Somebody else takes over. Did you have any major disappointments? What would you like to have done, your biggest disappointment, maybe your biggest highlight in office as you look back on it.

Reagan: Well, uh, I'll start with the biggest highlight. The first of all... was proving that some things I'd long believed as a citizen would work. That you could introduce common sense in government and after the first traumatic shock you kind of made some of it work. We, um, we came into quite a... a mess and at the end of eight years... You know government, in the United States, federal, state and local, has been growing for 20 years, in size, about two and a half times as fast as the increase in population... except for the last eight years in California.
We turned over a government that was the same size as the one we inherited eight years ago. There'd been no growth and in some departments this meant an increase of as much as 66 percent in the workload. But, um, part of that was the welfare reforms.

Carson: Right.

Reagan: Welfare was increasing here in California 40,000 cases a month and we left with about 400,000 fewer people on welfare than there were four years ago. This saved the taxpayers about a billion dollars but what was equally important we were spread so thin we couldn't do what we should have done for, uh, the really needy, the really deserving and we were able to increase their grants by way of those reforms 43 percent.
Now you asked for what was the greatest disappointment the people handed it to us when, I think they were deceived, but when they voted down the tax limitation plan. I still say that the answer to our problems in this country even at the National level is to have a law that says there is a percentage limit of the people's earnings that government cannot go beyond without the consent of the people.

(Applause)

Carson: You're talking about... You're talking about the gross income of the country and how much they can appropriate for us...

Reagan: That's right.

Carson: ... for federal projects.

Reagan: See... when, um, when you and I were boys back in the Midwest...

Carson: Right....

Reagan: Governments, federal state and local were only taking about 15 cents out of every dollar earned. Today, they're taking almost half of every dollar earned in the United States and most people don't realize it because the taxes are hidden in the so-called business taxes, you know, the politician that stands up and yells, "Oh let's save the little man, let's tax business" and everybody yells "hurray". They haven't figured out that every tax on business is just a part of the cost of production and the customer winds up paying it when he buys the product. It's a hidden sales tax. There's 116 of them in a... the suit of clothes that each one of us is wearing.

Carson: Uh-huh. So a lot of economists have suggested, and I don't know they'll ever come to be in this country, that they're... if they closed all of the loopholes and corporations and maybe tax loopholes and even on the rich certain loopholes and and made a percentage income and made a flat fee without all of the deductions that the government might raise as much money as they do now.

Reagan: Oh sure and really the loopholes, this has been overdone by the politicians too. The bulk of the money that is taken by what are called loopholes are the legitimate deductions with which if the people didn't have them they couldn't pay their income tax; interest on their mortgage, interest on the installments on their... on their car, their property taxes on their home, if they have one and so forth. These are, in politicians eyes, loopholes. But we ought to have tax reform and we ought to start by making it so simple that you don't have to hire a lawyer to find out how much you owe every year.

Carson: That's for sure... it used to be, uh... it used to be a little simplified but not anymore.

Reagan: We... Johnny, we live in the only country in a world where it takes more brains to figure out your income tax than it does to earn the income.

Carson: [Laughs] You might be right.
Why do you think people are so they seem to be so disheartened now?
I know... Let's not get into the Watergate thing but that certainly had something to do with the, uh, the antipathy, I think, of a lot of people toward government, now we we see these revelations, of whether their revelations, or at least accusations that possibly the C.I.A. has been involved in some operations that they shouldn't have been involved in, certainly domestically, and people regularly get turned off. How do you... How do you turn people around and say "All right now, we're not going to do this anymore," and every day you see more of these things and I think people withdraw further and further and that's too bad.

Reagan: I know and I think part of it is because we're being bludgeoned every day... it's news... bad things are news we just every day we pick up and they read and record another tenth of a percent unemployment and so forth.
We keep hearing the the bad things... we hear the accusations and we're kind of used to accepting the accusation as proof of guilt. Now I'm on the C.I.A. Commission, so I'm rather limited... I cannot talk at this stage...

Carson: True.

Reagan: But I think one of the sad things is that the American people cannot know instead, frankly, we have to have a counter intelligence organization for our own safety. If the American people knew the extent to which were being spied on by the Russians, they'd throw détente out the window and Brezhnev and a few fellows with it.

Carson: Well, obviously, I agree that... that has to go on internationally to protect your national security but when they start looking at, you know, their own their own congressmen and own private citizens who's only a threat to national security seem to be to voice some difference of opinions that's going a little over the line isn't it.

Reagan: No because... well again as I say we...

Carson: Oh that's right you can't...

Reagan: We can't... we can't give any progress report for you...

Carson: You want to speak into the ashtray here and tell me privately.

Reagan: All I'd say to the people is wait until the report comes in and I think when a report comes in, uh um, maybe they might be greatly reassured.

Carson: I didn't mean to put you behind the eight ball there I realize of course you're on that commission and you couldn't expand on that. Let's take a brief break and we'll come right back and get on another subject

(Commercial Break, 7:27)

Carson: We're talking with, uh, former governor Reagan and uh during the break we were discussing what I mentioned, uh, that I thought most people uh were not apathetic I think they're confused, basically, because you hear intelligent people from both political parties or in the middle, conservatives and liberals, and they all seem to have different answers as to what is going wrong in the country. Some people say well let's let the government spend billions of dollars and then other people say no no more federal spending, uh, let's give the tax rebates, and the other intelligent people say no tax rebates we've got to do this and do that so everybody is confused how do you see the thing what how are we going to get out of this?

Reagan: Well, Johnny I think that one of the things is that people keep looking to government for the answer and government's the problem. (Applause) You... A moment ago you asked you know about people and feeling not only confused but low and and down in America.
First of all, the American people, if they would just take a little inventory and look around... you triple our troubles and we're better off than any other people on Earth. And we've asked so much of government and we've gotten in the habit over the last 40 years of thinking the government has the answers. There's very little that government can do as efficiently and as economically as the people can do themselves and if government would shut the doors and sneak away for about three weeks we'd never miss them.
Now the... if the people...

Carson: Anybody you had in mind, particularly?

Reagan: No, I said this while I was in government.

Carson: Okay.

Reagan: Our biggest problem is that we have built a permanent structure of government, federal state and local, the permanent employees and they've come to the place that they actually determine policy in this country more than does the Congress of the United States. There are 14 and a half million public employees in the United States, that's quite a voting bloc, and the bureaus and agencies not in Washington...
I heard you talking earlier about some of the research programs. Well there was a senator the other day, and he took up some pages of the Congressional Record. He was doing the same thing you were, listing all these crazy research programs and how much they were costing and wound up his speech by introducing his own. He wants a study in a research of transcendental meditation.
So you know there's a state senator in Michigan, and he just found out the other day, they got a $93,000 study on whether chitlins are bad for you, and and he said that as a fourth generation chitlin eater he figured that he could tell you how for 93 cents you can find out the answer to that.

Carson: No we laugh at those things but they do happen, I guess.

Reagan: Oh, listen there, you had... you had some beauties, and there's some others. What would you say if I told you about one, a study, in which... this was called the um, the Demography of Happiness. And in this study the government found out that young people are happier than old people; they found out that people that earn more are happier than people that earn less; and they found out that well people are happier than sick people.

Carson: That's good. Glad to know that.

Reagan: $249,000 to find out it's better to be rich, young, and healthy than old, poor, and sick.

(Laughter and Applause)

Carson: So, when you say now that it's the government may be the problem, so... so what do people do?
They have to look to somebody and you say if they look for themselves that's uh... It may be good advice, but how about somebody who's on a, you know a social security pension or a pension they're trying to live on a $150 per month you know, they have to look to somebody, I guess...

Reagan: Yeah.

Carson: They're saying "Hey we can't make it, we can't afford to go to a doctor."

Reagan: Well 62% of the people can't stay home in an election and cure things as we did in the last election.

Carson: I just read this week... on... I heard this week on the radio they dropped 300,000 voters from the Los Angeles roll because they didn't take the time to go to the polls in the last election. Three hundred thousand people!

Reagan: The lowest percentage in history only 38 percent of the people voted in the national election and this means that people aren't paying any attention to what, well, here a poll was taken recently that found out that only 46 percent of the people in the poll could name their United States Congressman. But what was worse 86 percent of those who could name him, couldn't tell you a single thing that he represented or stood for.

Carson: They just knew that he represented the state...

Reagan: He was a congressman but what's he doing while he's up there and the same is true at the at the local levels of government and... and all the rest. But uh...

Carson: So you're saying people really have to take an active interest and you have to have, uh, citizen action groups locally and uh...

Reagan: And let them know [crosstalk]
Now the special interest groups aren't as everyone thought big powerful business interests are something that are going to persuade government to do things as a matter of fact I don't know anyone with less influence today in government than business they're just a convenient whipping boy. but it's the groups that have got a particular axe to grind you can't have a power plant because it might interfere with the seagulls.

Now I think I'm an environmentalist and I do not agree with those people way over the edge who paved the whole country over in the name of progress, but also I don't like those on the other extreme that won't let you build a house unless it looks like a bird's nest someplace in the middle we got to allow... people are ecology too.

Carson: Right...

Reagan: Well this kind of group and they want their particular program. Hundreds of dollars have been added to the cost of an automobile putting gadgets on it to to clear up the air. We're the only country in the world that set out to do it that way. The automobile industry, over and over again, told government if they give them more time, the answer lay in making the motor more efficient and making it burn the fuel better and... when they were given the limited time there was only one thing they could turn to... that was the add-ons that you had to go.

Carson: And, uh, the verdict is really kind of still out on on those whether they're going to add more sulfuric acid to the to the air or not.

Reagan: Yeah.

Carson: What do you think is going to happen... Now you've been asked this question... I'm sure you knew that I was... would might possibly bring it up tonight, uh, there's an election coming up you're, uh, you're out of politics now but you're speaking, and as I say, you're going around the country. Do you envision a possibility say in '76 if the convention say was deadlocked. I'm giving you all the theories and so forth and the conservatives took over possibly and got control of the, us, of the electoral process and they couldn't quite make a decision and they came to you and said "Governor Reagan uh we can't decide between Mr., uh, Ford and Mr. Rockefeller, we're divided um would you like to uh would you like to go to the White House."

Reagan: Uh, you remember that answer I gave you about the C.I.A.?

Carson: Yeah. (Laughter) Come on, I know... I'm not gonna buy them. Now I can understand the C.I.A. now but uh... I thought that was delicately phrased.

Reagan: Yes. Verbose but delicate.

Carson: Yeah, verbose but delicate.

Reagan: That one I, um, no I think it's an unanswerable question. I don't think anyone in view of the things that are going on the last few years knows what's going to happen in the in the next two years, down the road. I think that everyone should hope and pray that people are there will do the job so well there won't be any question about it because if they do then everything's all right with the rest of us, uh,

Carson: Do you think they're doing their job well?

Reagan: Well I agree with some things and disagree with others. When they... when they give me a... when they give me a choice between a 53 billion dollar deficit in the budget and an 80 billion dollar deficit, when budget deficits are what's causing inflation, I don't see that there's any room to be on either side of that argument. I think the answer to curing inflation is a balanced budget.

Carson: Now how do you do that? I mean how do you balance the budget?

Reagan: Well balancing the budget is like protecting...

Carson: You don't spend more than you take in.

Reagan: Right. It's like protecting your virtue. You have to learn to say no.

(Applause)

Carson: There's got to be another way. (Laughter) What's the second option?

Reagan: Well, no, there's some ways that this could be brought about first of all that limitation. Here's another one. Why shouldn't we have in addition to a simplified income tax why shouldn't we also have a law that says that anytime a legislator a congressman introduces a spending program he has to introduce with it a tax program to pay for it then let the people find out.

There was a woman that... from a financial firm that was back at the president's Economic Council and her words weren't quoted... Everybody else's words got in the paper, all the Hellers and the Galbraiths and all the so-called economists. And I had... I have a degree in economics so I can say this, I think an economist is someone who has a Phi Beta Kappa key on one end of his watch chain and no watch on the other.

Uh, this woman said that you go to the polls and you ask the people do they want some social service... some program that government can give and the people in the polls are apt to read and say that sounds good, yeah. But she says that isn't exactly accurate. She says put a 100 bill in each person's hand and then show them the program and say, "Now isn't that a nice program? Do you want it? Give me the hundred dollars." and she says see what the poll says then and how many people hang on with a hundred dollars instead of the program.

Carson: in other words it was rather hidden and someone doesn't know exactly where it's going to come...

Reagan: They all start... all the government programs start a dollar down and we'll catch you later. And... and they they multiply all of those things that you would...

the Office of Management and Budget in Washington, that's responsible for the budget, putting up putting the budget together, cannot even tell you how many boards, commissions, agencies, bureaus, and departments there are in the federal government. But all of them can pass regulations and those regulations have the force of law. And the difference is when you break the law, you're innocent until proven guilty, when you break a regulation the fellow that charges you with a breaking the regulation, you're guilty.

Carson: Right.

Reagan: If you want to take him to court and prove you're innocent that's up to you. And all of these are things that that... um yes we can trim the budget. there's enough fat in the federal government that if you rendered it you could wash the world.

Carson: You, uh now you took... (Applause) They took a poll of the American people the past week and I think 78 percent, or something around 75 percent were opposed to more military aid to Vietnam and Cambodia and southeast Asia in general and yet the administration uh was trying to tell the American people that a couple hundred million or 222 million dollars would make some kind of difference or that the government might make it. And, uh, how do you feel you think that that is a lost cause in a way? I think people can see humanitarian, you know, for children hospitals, et cetera, and medical supplies, and food but it seems that the public has just almost had it up with military involvement where we feel we are not directly threatened.

Reagan: Well, we we are, uh, fed up. We're war-weary after a long and badly fought war. On the other hand, and this is one where I'll probably lose a lot of people because it isn't popular or political to say this today. When we withdrew our troops we made a ceasefire, a peace agreement and it was based on, uh, supporting the non-communist forces in Indochina on a basis of one-for-one replacement, every bullet they expended, a bullet to replace it, if the communists violated the ceasefire. The Communists have violated the ceasefire 72 thousand times, since it was instituted and we brought our men home and I think for the United States to break its word, we're in that agreement we pledge, something and the Congress is now saying that the United States reserves the right to just break its word and not... What other allies ever going to trust us and I, um, there's no question that backed by Red China and the Soviet Union the Communist forces in Vietnam and Cambodia are on their way to take those over. They do, of course, Laos just automatically falls then they're on the edge of Indonesia, 140 million people which comes within miles, at its nearest point, of the Philippines. The Domino Theory is...

Carson: Is it still a viable theory?

Reagan: Yes it is and I... I could see the United States one day being very very lonely. Now it's a very funny thing that the same forces that want to cut our defense spending are the same ones that want to increase all these social services and this social tinkering and experimenting that hasn't worked and every time it doesn't work they just impose a more expensive program on top of it. I think the American people, if they really look at all the facts, uh, yes we want fiscal responsibility but I think we also want a country that is strong enough at all times that we can say to any adventurous guys over there on the other side of the water you better look twice brother before you start getting rough that we can take care of ourselves. (Applause)

Carson: As you said... you even before you made the statement that would probably get mixed with your, uh, uh, reaction.

Reagan: I can understand that. People aren't, and it's hard to understand how maybe your interest is involved 10 000 miles away, but Russia seems concerned that their interests extend all the way to Cuba and to South America to Chile and to other countries of that kind and they're the ones that have said they're going to impose their way of life and the rest of the world. We haven't said we want to do it to the rest of the world our way.

Carson: Let me ask you one more question before you go. Let us assume that there's a third party, that neither party seems to go...

Reagan: Yeah.

Carson: Uh you like this approach already, huh? Uh and they're thrown into disarray as they say and a third party is formed. You think that'll ever happen in this country? That a third party will be a major type of uh alternate to what we have well?

Reagan: I'd still prefer to see a revitalization of the two major parties we have because the two-party system has served us very well. Third parties have a notorious way of not being successful. Now the Republican party, some people say, well that was a third party 100 years ago when it started. It actually wasn't, it was a second party. The Whig party had shrunk and shrunk and then the remainder of the Whig party said the two other groups that had formed parties, 'Hey want to get together with us?' They changed their name and called themselves the other party and so it was in effect the Whigs just disappeared. It was a new second party.

Uh, maybe this is time... maybe it's time for, uh, realignment between people who might be finding themselves in the wrong parties. Maybe there are some people still voting... I was a Democrat most of my life, I became a Republican only not too many years ago. And I had the pleasure of telling some of those people that are saying the Republican party ought to broaden its base the other day that, uh, when I switched parties I didn't do it because the two parties were alike, I did it because they were different. And I think that the two parties ought to stand up as to what they represent... what they stand for.

A third party I they have a way of electing the wrong people they because they simply divide themselves from the other forces that feel the same way and then the other fellow sneaks in and then I'd... it, it could happen that the that neither party would would represent what the people want and finally the people would take some action do something about it but I'd, I'd rather devote our effort to seeing if we can't find out what the present two parties stand for and which one we want.

Carson: But you don't see yourself, or do you see yourself as maybe as a part of that actively, active politically again. I certainly don't give up do I?

Reagan: Uh, yeah, you... you... you sure... sure don't. I wish I could think of a good get-off line.

Carson: I have Lawrence Spivak's old questions you know for that.

Reagan: Nancy, Nancy you know said to say hello tonight she thought it was great that we're both in town at the same time.

Carson: You too? I get that. Thanks for being with us tonight, really.

Reagan: It's a pleasure to see you again.