Larry Wilmore ridiculed Republican candidates for dumbing down their message to appeal to primary voters.

The debate, broadcast by Fox Business, was focused on economics — but Wilmore said, since this is a Republican debate, “things got a little Jesus-y.”

He said no one does that better than Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), who complained that the IRS tax code contained significantly more words than the Bible, although “not a one of them is as good.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“I don’t know,” Wilmore said. “‘Refund’ is better than ‘plague.'”

He wondered why Republicans were so obsessed with the tax code’s complexity, saying the wealthiest country in the world should probably have a complicated system for taxing its citizens.

Wilmore said Republican candidates always appealed to anti-intellectualism during election season.

“You don’t want to be a smart elitist,” he said. “You’ve got to be a dumbed-down, everyday Joe.”

He played a clip of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) extolling the virtues of vocational training over a liberal arts education, falsely claiming that welders made more money than philosophy majors.

ADVERTISEMENT

“Outside of the fact that philosophers actually make more money than welders, it’s your party’s philosophy to destroy the unions that make it possible for welders that are trying to protect their jobs,” Wilmore said. “That’s why welders are becoming philosophers — to find out how the f*ck this happened.”

Watch the entire clip posted online by Comedy Central: