Ted Cruz Made a Larry David Joke During the Debate With Bernie Sanders

Finding Your Roots has at least one fan in the U.S. Senate. Texas Senator Ted Cruz made a sly reference to the PBS television show Finding Your Roots during a CNN debate, by suggesting that Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders “curb [his] enthusiasm” about a particular point in the Republican tax plan.

The mild dig was a reference to a recently discovered branch in the Sanders family tree, which was unearthed by the researchers at Finding Your Roots— Seinfeld creator and Curb Your Enthusiasm star Larry David. When David appeared on the show, the ancestry experts were able to trace his lineage to that of Sanders. The results are particularly funny because David portrayed Sanders on Saturday Night Live throughout the 2016 election cycle and many people noted David’s uncanny ability to impersonate Sanders, including Sanders himself. “People say to me, you know they talk about Larry David, and I say he does a better Bernie Sanders than I do,” the senator said of his new “cousin.”

Perhaps Cruz and Sanders will remember this moment the next time PBS funding comes up for a vote.

Watch the moment between the opponents above.