"life, liberty & levin" is coming up next. and next week, one of our guests will be the former california governor arnold schwarzenegger, you better join us next sunday for the "the next revolution" or you will be terminated. . mark: hello, america. welcome to "life, liberty & levin." and i'm here with dr. larry arnn. how are you, sir? >> very well, great to be with you. mark: renowned president of hillsdale college. expert on matters related to the constitution, the declaration of independence, churchill and today's show we're going to dive deeply into these issues. let's start with the declaration of independence. everybody knows we celebrate july 4th as independence day,

but let's read part of the declaration of independence and maybe can you help explain some of these words to us, because we read it, goes really in our mouths, out our ears but the words had meaning. first of all, before i read, it they were very, very meticulous, weren't they, about what they put in the declaration? >> mostly on the motion of john adams they picked thomas jefferson who proved to be a beautiful writer of pamphlets leading up to the american revolution, and they wanted somebody who could write in an elevated way and a moving way. mark: and they had various iterations so they finalized it. >> that's right, that's right. he sat and wrote it in a room by himself, july 1st and 2nd and they debated it and voted it and altered it in some ways. >> uh-huh. let's start at beginning. when in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the

political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's god entitlement, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. here are the words i want to focus on with you, laws of nature and of nature's god. are those important? what does that mean? >> well, the document is unprecedented, and unprecedented for two reasons. one is it's a law, it's a political act of a people, people formed by this act. and yet it starts out in the way you said, right, so the opening sentence is when in the course, that means any time, one people, that means any people. so it is eternal and universal. now the legal act that they

undertake is to separate themselves from the strongest man on earth. the king of england. and thas an act of war or treason, depending who wins the war, and they need some standard to do that by. and so for the first time in human history in this particular political act, they appeal to laws that are eternal and divine. that is to say, above any -- no one can ever change them, right? these are things that are set in nature. and so they go up that high in part because they simply have to, as you see in the very last sentence, probably talked about that, it starts with this grand, sweeping uniform and it ends with a particular pledge unto death of the people in the room, and they feel like they need some justification for this, and so they don't say we

want to. they say this is an act done in light of the great laws that always prevail. mark: so, laws of nature, nature's god, they're saying these are laws that are not man made. these are laws that don't come from government. these are laws of nature from god you are born with these laws. for instance, there's a moral order, there's truth, there are lies, there's good, there's evil, and are they saying that plies t all human beings, whever they are, you know right from wrong in the united states, you know right from wrong in france. >> that's right. mark: and these aren't things that you get from government, these are inate. aristotle, cicero, athenians, romans and so forth. they were read by the founders of this country. they knew who aristotle was,

they knew who cicero was, that's important? >> what the greeks did and the romans followed them, they were the first ones to ask questions that would lead to comprehension of the laws of nature and nature's god. the questions that socrates asked the greek is ti este, what is a thing in its essence? what is a human being. you can't understand the declaration of independence until you understand this conception of human equality that we'll talk about. that means that everything that is a human being is a human being and not another kind of being and has to be treated like a human being. and so and that starts with greek philosophy. mark: human beings are different than any othering. >> courses. the very famous letter, important letter he wrote before he died, he died on the 50th birthday of the declaration of independence, thomas jefferson, writes to a man named whiteman. somewhere not born with saddles

on their backs, nor others booted and spurred them to ride them by the grace of god. men cannot be ruled the way horses can be ruled, because they're not the same thing, and the laws of nature, nature is a very rich word, and it means that each kind of thing has an essence of its own, i is entitled to protection and the essence.hat go with that mark: this is crucially important, isn't it? we're really the only country that was founded on these ideas, on these principles, on these truisms. as a matter of fact, john lock, was the most important philosopher on the revolutionary period, correct? people said to him as he wrote his second treatise on government. this is all well and good, but where does this exist? >> that's right. mark: what do you say? >> that's right. mark: america. that's the place. why is john lock so important? >> there is a ref pollution

that john lock that is so important that goes along with the birth of universal monotheism. mark: that is universal monotheism? >> well, it starts with the jews and the christians. so if you just think of abraham's god's covenant with abraham, i will be your god, and you will be my people, and this will be a blessing to all the peoples of the earth. you know, the jews have a hard deal. as you know, right? because they're the chosen people. turns out that's hard duty, you know? lot goes wrong when you're the chosen people and much is expected of you, right? but once you've got that kind of idea that there is one god for every human being and christianity is very radical about this, because jesus, y know, everybody' god, the path to salvation is throu me, and my kingdom is not of this world. that means judaism is a universal religion, and it's a political religion, it gives a

law, but it only gives the laws to the jews, see? they're the ones who have to bear to burden, right? whereas, in christianity, there are no courts, judges, no legislatures appointed, so you still have government, you have to have government, people are made in their nature to live under law, but now there has to be a limit on the law. the law can't mess with your religion or your conscience more generally. you have a right to exercise your religion as you wish, and john lock more than anybody else, and along with others, laid out the ground of how government would work like that now, which is not the way it worked in the ancient world. so they are aware of all this in the revolution, and they take that idea, and see, the first place on earth that achieved, the first chief executive outside israel to

write a letter to some jews addressing them as equal citizens was george washington. we put a passage from that. his letter as president to the hebrew congregation in newport, rhode island. we put a passage on that on our christmas card at hillsdale college every year, it's very beautiful, right? so we get freedom of religion established not -- he says washington says to the jews, it is now no more that we speak of religious toleration as if it were the indulgence of some that others enjoy their inherent natural rights. see? you have to have a nation like that if you're going to have freedom of religion. mark: so you have a nation that is founded on the notion of really individual sovereignty in many respects. respect for the individual.

at birth, certain rights at birth, that are recognized in the declaration of independence. natural law. a given eternal moral order, like the golden rule or what have you. it is because it is, and we have this declaration of independence where these men come together, and really for the first time in man kind, proclaim this. now they also say in the declaration of independence, we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, endowed by their crater with certain inalienable rights, talking about god, the creator, and the divine, unalienable rights, self evident. isn't that what you are talking about when you talk about natural law? what are the inalienable rights and what do they mean by created equal? >> it's a precept of the natural law that all men are

created equal. and in one way they totalology. saying the same thing twice. if you look at a bunch of human being, they're all different. somewhere tall, somewhere short. somewhere moderate people, some people are like you and me, but they're different, right? but they're equal in this respect. like to say sit in a room with a bunch of people, and mebody reall big walks , d sebody really small walks, in you might know the difference. if somebody leads a pig in on a leash, that's a different thing, it's not the same thing anymore, right? it just means and just think of the subtext, right, they're writing this to george iii as the representative of sovereign of the british nation. you're just like us. you may not rule us, except by our consent. in 187 -- 1774, jefferson wrote

the very beautiful summary view of the rights of british north america. in the final paragraph he begins by addressing the king, let those flatter who fear, it is not an american art. isn't that great? mark: these men who do this, who are well read, enormously articulate, spreading the word, and they meet in philadelphia at independence hall, and there were disputes. they come up with this document. this was a death sentence for every one of them, wasn't it? >> that's right. at the time of the declaration of independence, there was a writ issued by the king for the arrest of most of the people who signed it and all the others were added, and it wasn't given to a policeman or prosecutor, it was given to a general, and he was to use the

army to find them and kill them or put them on ships and take them to england, and so they know that. there's one of the founders who is from pennsylvania and said to his wife in these wonderful records of the signers of the declaration of inencedepend he said we're going toote for independence, and sheaid yes. and he said i'm going to vote for it. and she said yes. and he said our farm is near the sea. they're going to take our farm. and she said you will find us somewhere to go. and that's why in the last sentence, you know, is the first sentence is universal, eternal, and divine, the last sentence is in support of this declaration, we mutually pledge to each other. the ones in the room to. all the others in the room our lives, our fortunes and sacred honor. that was a practical fact in

their mind. mark: when we come back, i want to talk about the relationship of the declaration of the constitution and in the attack on both by the progressives. and don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, you can watch levin tv every week night on crtv.com, conservative review tv.com, give us a call and join us, 844-levin-tv. that's 844-levin-tv.

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. mark: welcome back. i'm here with dr. larry arnn, president of hillsdale college. now, the declaration, abraham lincoln, when he was running for the senate, and he was debating douglas, often referred to the declaration of independence. this is the lead-up to the civil war. during the civil war. he often read from it and quoted the declaration of independence. why did he do that? >> well, lincoln was poetic and profound, you can never go wrong reading lincoln. he had a practical problem that's like the problem that the founders faced with the king of england. the problem was most people didn't think back then, they

didn't want black people marrying their kids and most of them didn't want a lot of them around, and douglas exploited that, and the charleston debate here, said did you know, he says to the people, that lincoln's friend fred douglas who spoke on our campus twice and there's a statue of him now, rode through this town last week in a carriage driven by a white man. mark: this is the great frederick douglas, an escaped slave, brilliant man. >> brilliant. mark: who helped lead the abolition movement. >> that's right, and the lincoln-douglas debates, only lincoln rises to great heights. douglas's health was destroyed by this experience, but lincoln says, you know, maybe the black woman is not my equal. you think. why don't you let her alone? because isn't she the equal of every one of us, and the right

to eat the bread she earns with the sweat of her own face? you see, douglas says i can take a hog or a buck board to protect my federal property. why not my slave? and lincoln says good point if there's no difference. you know, they don't hang pigs for murder down in the south, and they don't pass laws making it illegal to teach them to read. they know the difference, it's equality principle, just depends on us recognizing what kind of thing things are. that that's a cup, and that's a shoe and that's a man and that's a man, and each of those things are different from everyone else that fits in the category but fundamentally and essentially they're the same. mark: didn't lincoln also, as i recall in 1858, referred to the declaration, when it's talked about the founders of the country. those who sign the declaration,

many of them had slaves, and he pointed out but these are the men that wrote the declaration of independence, and they threat to their progeny, the declaration to try and write things because they couldn't write it at that time? >> they write it a lot of them at the time. slavery was abolished in more than half of the union within 20 years, and very important date in 1787 not only because the constitution was written in that year, but also because the northwest ordinance was passed in that year and the first time a free government ever grew, and they add five new states, on condition that was imposed by virginia that there are a clause in it. virginia, a slave state, on the motion of thomas jefferson a slave holder, there be no slavery allowed in the northwest territory. that was done without controversy, right? you look at records of the founding -- find the person, of

any prominence at all who said slavery was a good thing. you won't find it. mark: what's the relationship between the declaration of independentents and constitution of the united states? >> well, it's grand but particular. the grand part is if we're human beings and we're all the same in that respect, then we cannot be governed by other human beings as if they were our superiors. then you need some form of government to make that possible, right? government's got to act, it's got to do things. how do you set it up on this new principle? and in particular, there are 17 clauses in the middle of the declaration of independence that says the bad stuff the king did, right? mark: a list of particularates. >> this is a cause of the declaration. what did he do? he interfered with legislatures and with judges, which is a violation of separation of powers.

he was unrepresented of himself which is a violation of representation. he was -- what else did he do? >> he quartered troops on people, using force to rule. he expanded canada down into the colonies because he'd given them a constitution that they didn't have say over and taking away their rights that way. in other words, government has to be -- what are the main features of the constitution? they are representation and separation of powers. those are the main things. right? so the constitution is implied as a positive constitution is just the spring to life of these negative claims against the king in the declaration. mark: so it's the governing manifestation of the declaration. can we put it that way? >> that's exactly right. mark: okay, and the key is separation of powers, later they come back with the bill of rights, which they had to do, or the constitution would have

been ratified in the first place. >> that's right. >> the bill of rights are critical, they come out of the first congress, they go to the states, they're ratified, to enshrine individual liberties and state authority, to underscore and put an exclamation mark behind it, so federalism, individual liberty, separation of powers, delineated powers of the federal government, and then this force develops called -- they call themselves progressives, this regressive force develops, out of the philophy of hagel andmarx. what is this philosophy o progressivisms that develops out of the philosophers? >> classic philosophy and the philosophy of the declaration of independence looks out at the beings in nature and distinguishes them and sees what essences are and reaches a hierarchy about what they're

like, right? and that's understood to be essential. well historysism is what the hagel and marx. mark: what is historiorissism. the constant development of the human being so the past is lopped off. >> everything, it goes beyond the human. everything is change, and everything is -- not only is everything subject to change, everything is formed by the process of change, and so we are consciousness, that's a term of art in historicism, charmed by the forces of history working on us. that's the second thing, this is the attractive, the seductive part of progressivism, that is that once you know that everything is in the process of change, first of all, the first thing that happens is it means they start writing about the declaration of independence, it

was good for the time but not relevant anymore. mark: so no declaration. >> that won't work, by the way, because if the declaration is false now, it was false then by its own terms, never mind that. so they wipe all that out, but then the second thing is, now you see, wow, if everything is changing, maybe we could get control of the process of change? we could become the creators of everything, and we would have this new idea borne in a new way in historicism. we would have science, not understood as knowing. mark: let me stop you there, so progressivism creates this false science, replacing unalienable rights, the laws of nature, the entire purpose of founding the united states. i want to pick it up from there as soon as we return. baby boomers,

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>> this is a fox news alert, i'm kelly wright in new york. here's what's going on. unconfirmed reports tonight just moment ago of possibly two explosions occurring in austin, texas. two people have been taken to the hospital with unknown injuries. it is not known if these explosions are at all related to the string of explosions that has plagued the city over the last few weeks.

at least two people were killed, several others injured in three separate explosions. earlier today, austyn police announced a reward offered for information about those bombings was being increased to $1,000 -- $100,000, excuse me, texas governor greg abbott offering another $15,000 as well. unconfirmed reports of two explosions in austin, texas. stay tuned to fox news for updates as the story continues to development. i'm kelly wright, now back to "life, liberty & levin.". mark: welcome back. with dr. larry arnn. you were saying before the break, we have self-appointed change agents because we're unborn from custom and history, we use it to the extent we need it to create change and reject

it and condemn it. so progressivism is about this constant change, change, change dressed up as sciee, politil science, behavioral science, social signses, my question to yous this: how does the ideology, how does the ideology, how is it combatable with limited constitutional government, separation of powers. it's not, is it? >> it is explicit in woodrow wilson and john dewey and all those guys, it's explicit they don't like separation of powers and checks and balances, they say woodrow wilson says this n a famous passage that's accountable to a time when newt newton reigned, now we know darwin and everything is history and development and change, and our business is to get control of that. and remember, it's not just the past, nature itself is discarded here, and so now we

can do whatever we want to shape the future, to become the creators of everything, and that means in what's appealing about it in politics is the claim, you know, the claim is every problem can be fixed. mark: so every person should have this, health care. and we'll have a perfect health care system. >> that's right. mark: and everybody who wants to come to the united states, should be able to come to the united states, or these utopian arguments which are never fulfilled and then the progressives argument is it's not fulfilled because you haven't surrendered enough of your liberty? >> is it? that's right it. calls itself, at the bottom of the claim is you can be happy without being good. you can are a self-governing person without believing in self-government or practicing it. the idea is there's nothing special anybody can come here. well, this is hard to be a

self-governing nation with self-governing citizens that demands things of them that are harder. all those laws have been repealed, and then, you know, you're right. every failure, only summons more intensity in this same kind of attempt. so the reason right now that the schools are not very good is because we don't spend enough money on them and we don't have enough uniformity of practice in them. mark: so the individual is devoured. >> that's right. mark: in this. and then we get group think, and the individual's devoured and like hegel would argue, no the individual can realize his or her full self through the state, through the collective. and so correct me if i'm wrong, so the more you are actually independent, and really are an individual, the more you are hostile to the progressive ideology?

>> if you read the brave new world, the happy of the totalitarian novels of the 20th century. in there, the great thing is, if you say anything different, there are tools of enforcement, hazing and demotion and restriction because you're not to be different, and that's part of the thing, right? compliance is just -- think of that word, right? compliance is one of the ggest activities in america today. the federal government, the state and local and federal governments altogether control more than half of the economy, and you know, that number was always 10-15% for most of american history, get more during wars and subside after them, well, that's a difference in kind. there's difference in amount, amounts to a difference in kind. now we have a different purpose

of the government. we have new forms of government. we don't even make our laws the way we used to make them. we make so many more now because of that, and that means a different purpose, too. final in the formal causes are altered. mark: so we see the breakdown of separation of powers, we see this fourth branch of government, this massive administrative state with, hundreds of thousands if not millions of bureaucrats pushing out regulations, and i said to walter williams a few weeks ago, i said we don't appear to be a federal republic anymore. we don't appear to be a representative republic in many respects given this fourth branch of government, and in many cases the courts running off and doing what they're doing, and the constitution is constantly under attack. what kind of republic are we? are we transitioning to something else? >> well, the government increasingly looks at us as subject of an engineering

project. i once asked an attorney, you're a very distinguished attorney, i am not. i said i want you to send me title 4 of the higher education act. he said you won't be able to read it. and i said, well, i'm not stupid. he said, yeah, i can't read it either. he said we have an expert in our firm. she knows what's in it. mark: what's title 4? >> title 4 is the -- last time checked, about 500 pages of rules. hillsdale college, we run the whole college with about 100 pages of rules. those are like faculty handbook and stuff like that. mark: to get federal money, you got to do all these? >> and the rules change all the time. once you take the federal money it includes loans that take a long time to pay back, and you can't get out from under them once you do it until the loans are all paid. mark: very important point. when we come back, i want to address with you this issue of

progressivism in the classroom. >> yeah, yeah. mark: because over the decades that's exactly what's occurred. don't forget, ladies and gentlemen, you can watch levin tv on crtv.com, give us a call, 844-levin-tv and hope you join us there every week night. we'll be right back. does this map show the peninsula trail? you won't find that on a map. i'll take you there. take this left. if you listen real hard you can hear the whales. oop. you hear that? (vo) our subaru outback lets us see the world. sometimes in ways we never imagined. (avo) get 0% apr financing on all-new 2018 subaru outback models. now through april 2nd. hello. give me an hour in tanning room 3. cheers! that's confident. but it's not kayak confident. kayak searches hundreds of travel sites to help me plan

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he's kept over his own. brand vo: get paid twice as fast with quickbooks smart invoicing. quickbooks. backing you. ♪ come to my window ♪ ohh ♪ crawl inside ♪ wait by the light of the moon ♪ applebee's to go. order online and get $10 off $30. now that's eatin' good in the neighborhood. . mark: we're back with my friend, dr. larry arnn, president of hillsdale colleg a magnificent institution. we've been affiliated with hillsdale for quite a long time. anyway, progressivism is ubiquitous, one of the things that one of the so-called great progressives of 100 years ago focused on education, john dewey, what happened there? >> well, this new principle works itself out and changes

everything about what you learn. because if the past is by definition obsolete then you read it in a different way, not as seriously, it means literature and philosophy from the past. so the long human quest for knowledge is altered in character. now, second thing is in school, you just need to learn two things. you need to learn the human skills which are reasoning skills, reading, writing, arithmetic, and then you need to learn knowledge, the structure of knowledge of the physical world and of the story of mankind, right? well, that's all altered now, and even the skills part, we're always trying to invent a new way to teach reading, and you know in any good school, every kindergartner learns to read. we have a bunch of charter schools in hillsdale college, that's the rule. but it's a national goal. bill clinton announced it in

his state of the union in '95 every kid should learn to read by the end of the fourth grade for goodness sake. the thing is they can already read, it's natural. they learn to talk without anybody teaching them. reading is take the sound they know. cup. balance. fire. and they relate that to real things. all you got to do is take the sounds and relate them to marks on the page. that's why phonics works. mark: wt didewey and the progresses do? >> they thought all of that could b transformed. human reason itself is not any more a given, not any more inherent or inalienable, and so we should experiment now. we should invent new methods all the time, and we should get faster and faster, and we should transform ourselves into something else. not into a good one of these kinds of things, but in into a

different kind of thing. whatever we want to make, see? so that's why in the schools, did you know more than half the people who work in the public schools are not schoolteachers? and that's a thing of recent development since 1950, friedman foundation did this. students have grown 200%, teachers have grown 250%. nonteachers have grown 700%. mark: so they built this, like, industrial, educational complex. >> that's right. mark: and you really, you really can't break into it. they have the nea and the aft, there is this incest ral relationship between administrators, and what goes on in the classroom, parents and communities pay for all this, and it's their kids after all, have less and less say. >> that's right. and see the legal licensing part of it because

progressivism comes into america from germany through a few universities, spreads to others and spreads throughout the society, right? and so today in most states, if you want to be a schoolteacher, you've got to get a certification that requires that you go to some department of education in a university and they lay out, and they don't teach you -- mark: you are indoctrinateed? >> they teach you aebra for teachers, you might not know that algebra but you know processes of teaching, so they're deliverers now, right? and the great thinkers at the top of the administrative state can pour in ideas and go along with teachers like conveyor belts and get to the students, and that means that the progressive ideas are now legally tied in huge ways with more than half of the budget of every state in the union into a system that guarantees that it's uniform up and down, and

increasingly tries. mark: and the consequence is, the sort of thing we saw the other day, where kids were leaving the schools to join in a march related to the 2nd amendment or against the 2nd amendment, and it develops group think, it develops the situations we have on college campuses where certain people with certain point was views aren't able to speak, so group think and we get conformity, as you brought up earlier. when we come back, i want to explore this a little more with dr. arnn. [cars honking] [car accelerating] you can switch and save worry. ♪ you can switch and save hassle. [vacuuming sound] and when you switch to esurance, you can save time, worry, hassle and yup, money. in fact, drivers who switched from geico to esurance saved hundreds. so you might want to think about pulling the ol' switcheroo. that's auto and home insurance for the modern world.

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. mark: so dr. arnn, what have our classrooms become? >> for example, in states with strict common core standards, now often, many schools, teachers are required to submit weekly lesson plans, and every point they cover hasó got to b related to sothing, specific passage in the bureaucratic standards. so they're controlled tightly from above, and that takes what out of it? that means that the students are just doing what they're told all day long, and just you talked about those demonstrations. a third grader in a

demonstration, that's an amazing thing to happen. and just think of that word demonstration. there's a beautiful thing from lincoln that says, guy said to him, how did you learn to speak so well? and he said, well, you know, i kept running across the word demonstrate, and i looked and looked and discovered what it meant, and i decided it was some high standard of proof, so i left my situation in springfield, and i went home and i did not come back until i could repeat all of the propositions of euclid from memory. that's what made abraham lincoln what he was. being a third grader told to wave signs doesn't advance tout independence of mind and character that an excellent education would give you. mark: the word independence, we used the word individualism. this kind of devours again independent thinking and yet here these institutions exist, we think, for academic freedom,

for free speech, in order to learn, to gain knowledge, and what appears to happen is it's to advance a social agenda. climate change, or whatever the agenda is, and it is always of the progressive agenda, pretty much, is it not? >> yeah and, you know, climate change, whatever you think about it, is complex, but climate, what does that word mean? what does change mean? what does demonstratemean? the substance of educatio said it earlier, socrates is always ti este. what is a thing? education is getting a strong grasp of what things mean, and the conclusions that are drawn later that become public policy issues, school is not the place to do that, you are preparing to participate in school. and just remember, half the

people take -- shave off more than half the budget of education, more than half of it goes people who do not teach, and they have interests to protect, and they organize the schools increasingly to protect those interests. mark: and so, there's not as much actual education that goes on in these schools anymore. there's much more social policy and that sort of thing. >> education, mark, is like this. like you and me. we've known each other 30 years. we didn't plan this conversation out very well. not for us to judge whether it's any good or not. but neither one of us could have predicted exactly what's going to happen because we're both talking and we react to each other. we always liked to do that. a classroom should be like that. the kids help, but there's a common task in front of all of them. and if you identify that classrooms are a magical place. mark: we'll be right back.

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mark: dr. arnn, in the minute we have left what is the future of america? >> we are in a condition like the one that lincoln described. a house divided. there are two ways of thinking in two ways of governing and has to resolve itself. it will do that kind of crisis in because i'm an admirer of winston churchill i believe it is necessary in truth think that crisis will be resolved beautifully and incapable. mark: but it could go the other way. >> it could. better get ready. mark: better get ready. i want to thank you and thank you for not only coming on today but for teaching thousands and thousands of young people who i come across all the time. youave a wonderful college, llsdale college,hey think of themselves and some of the smartest people i deal with

anytime. >> my privilege. mark: ladies and gentlemen, it is important that we understand why our country exists and why we are a free people. that is the point of educating ourselves about the declaration in the constitution. thank you for joining us on "life, liberty and levin". i will see you next time. and a reporter with one story. >> there will eventually be a point of pent-up demand on capitol hill to work together and get things done. >> we the people are supposed to decide who governs us. >> i think it's really hard to argue that the tax cuts did not actually move the needle on the economy. ♪ [ laughter ] >> i'll take a long pause there. hold the pause. >> and i paused for a minute whether i should open that door, but... >> sure, we'll all run through it.