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 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)