Left-wing CNN political commentator Van Jones conceded Friday that former Vice President Joe Biden’s widely panned performance in the second Democrat presidential primary debate last month proved that he may not be tough enough to go mano a mano with President Donald Trump.

He made the remark after being asked by “Anderson Cooper 360” fill-in host Jim Sciutto about the former VP turned 2020 contender’s tough guy act.

“Joe Biden made the case, right, he called — he called Donald Trump a bully,” Sciutto said. “He said I know this bully, I’ve dealt with bullies before, I’m going to push back. You remember his famous line a couple of years ago about taking him behind the schoolhouse and punching him in the nose kind of thing? How is he selling that point that I’m the guy who can go in the ring against Trump and beat him?”

And that’s when Jones unveiled the truth.

Listen:

“I think that case got dinged up a little bit when Kamala Harris went after him, and he really just wasn’t able to answer it on his feet in that moment,” he said.

Despite reportedly being warned in advance that the other 2020 contenders would attempt to pummel him, Biden walked onto the stage “flat-footed and ill-prepared,” as former Republican National Committee chair Michael Steele put it during an interview earlier this week.

As a result, he fell apart live on national TV as fellow candidate Sen. Kamala Harris ruthlessly excoriated him over his past opposition to so-called integrated busing and his recent comments about his former segregationist colleagues.

This performance seemed to demonstrate that not only is he lousy at making debate preparations, but that his tough guy act is limited to talking behind people’s backs. When it comes to acting tough in people’s faces — as is needed for any debate champion — he’s a dud.

“I think he was very honest in saying he was prepared for some of that, but he wasn’t prepared for the more personal and emotional attack that she launched because, frankly, he knows her pretty well and she knows his family pretty well. I thought that was one of the most telling things. Listen, I just didn’t expect that,” Jones continued Friday.

“I think when I was watching that I said, ‘This guy doesn’t look like, at least tonight, that he’s ready to go head to-head with Donald Trump or really with anybody.‘ I think he’s going to have to prove himself again to the American people, that he can be that fighter that his son was talking about. He does have a history of fighting, but I think he lost some of that electability argument by performing so poorly against Kamala Harris.”

For a reminder of what Biden’s smackdown by Harris looked like, watch the video below:

All this places liberal Democrats in a precarious spot because most of them seem to believe Biden is the only one who stands a real chance at defeating the president.

“There is a lot of anxiety in this country about people other than Joe Biden winning the democratic nomination,” David Gergen said to Sciutto earlier in the discussion.

“That’s not the person they think can beat Donald Trump if they’re for a lot of far left-wing propositions that are extremely expensive and will drive away working people. So you do have to find somebody who not only is tough in the ring but has a set of ideas that are persuasive.”

The problem, as Gergen articulated, is that the vast majority of Democrats running for the White House are, for a lack of a better word, radicals and extremists.

Case in point:

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …

The argument could be made that almost every Democrat candidate running for office is nuts. The problem is that the American people aren’t interested in putting lunatics into the White House.

Like liberal comedian and commentator Bill Maher warned last month, “[I]f you want to run a campaign based on reparations and concentration camps, if that’s what — then it’s going to be very hard to win the election. I’m not saying you can’t do it, but it would be very hard to argue that this is helping.”

This leaves liberal Democrats with two options: They can either hope and wait for the other candidates to tone down their extremist rhetoric, or they can throw their support behind Biden. According to the polls, thus far it appears the American people have opted for option number two.

45% say Joe Biden has the best chance to beat Pres. Trump in the general election, more than the next closest three candidates combined, per new @ABC News/WaPo poll. https://t.co/tGA7fhg3rZ pic.twitter.com/MyrRwzqZlX — This Week (@ThisWeekABC) July 6, 2019

The only question left is whether “Sleepy” Joe Biden has what it takes to take on Trump. And well, so far it’s not looking good for him and the liberal Democrats who’ve put all their eggs in the Biden basket.

HERE’S WHAT YOU’RE MISSING …