Wednesday during MSNBC’s post-Democratic debate analysis, “Hardball” anchor Chris Matthews said 2020 presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden seemed to be “reciting a lot of stuff,” and that “he ran out of his recitation rather than his thought.”

Matthews said, “Well, last night reminded me of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid with Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as the two main characters fighting off the Bolivian army. Tonight it was more like Gulliver’s Travels. I mean, there was Vice President Biden tied down after rope after rope for his long political career. He had to defend every element of it going back, as Michael Bennet said, 50 years on issues like busing. It was very hard for him to play defense.”

He continued, “Tonight it was clear that over and over again he was playing defense. And the hardest thing for him to defend in the current climate politically was the deportations. I thought he was hit very hard on, that on the question of double talk because he said it was wrong for his opponents, for Gillibrand to change her vote because of the election. And right out of nowhere he got hit on the fact that he was changing his vote on the Hyde Amendment, for example. So he had so many people coming at him from so many directions. I think it would be very hard for him to be a successful goalie tonight.”

He added, “I will say one thing. He was 100% better but maybe 200% better than he was in the first debate. He seemed to be aware he was in a debate, which is a start for him. And I thought he was reciting a lot of stuff. In fact, a lot of times when he got to the end of his time, it was like he ran out of his recitation rather than his thought. I don’t think that looked too good.”

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