Jon Stewart tangled with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) over Tea Party economics, in between the comedian’s theatrics and a couple jokes from the senator.
Sparring over the minimum wage and Rubio’s proposal of an earned income tax credit on Tuesday night’s episode of “The Daily Show,” Stewart pushed the senator to embrace both.
“Let’s do this earned income tax credit thing, and raise the minimum wage,” Stewart said. “Suddenly you have an enormous group of people that raise themselves out of poverty.”
Rubio shook his head, saying that the minimum wage would cause companies to opt for machines over paying more for employees. The senator threw in a quip that new technologies will be better than low-wage workers.
“It will not be a person taking your order, there will be a touch screen there that you will order from and when you get to the window the order will be right,” Rubio joked.
To mixed laughter and groans from the audience, Stewart rolled his chair away from Rubio, pointed and yelled, “shun him!”
Rubio said his point was that the minimum wage would cause businesses to move to that technology sooner.
“They’re gonna move to that new technology anyway,” Stewart said, “because corporations are people, but they’re sociopaths.”
Watch the interview, courtesy of Comedy Central: