Morning Joe traces Marco Rubio’s ‘shrill, sophomoric and sweaty’ downfall since Trump beat him in 2016

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough was shocked by Sen. Marco Rubio's (R-FL) limp performance during his debate against Democratic challenger Val Demings.

The Florida Republican faced off against the Orlando-area congresswoman, who forcefully challenged his record on gun safety and abortion, and the "Morning Joe" host was surprised by how little enthusiasm the senator brought to his performance.

"Marco Rubio most likely will win, it could be a tight race -- we'll see how it goes," Scarborough said. "Florida has been trending Republican, obviously, strongly in 2020, but Val Demings did a very good job last night. I've got to say, and this is where I wish I could ask [NBC News correspondent] Mark Caputo this, but he's a reporter and can't really answer it. [I'm] getting a lot of phone calls people seeing the debate saying, this Marco Rubio. Everybody I talked to said something happened to him in 2016, like Donald Trump happened to him, got into his head, and he just never recovered."

"He seemed off balance last night, he would have pat answers -- the Second Amendment right... if you take guns away from people only criminals -- just these pat answers you would hear somebody in a middle-school debate make where they were pretending to be in a Senate debate," he continued. "He seemed shrill, he seemed sophomoric, he seemed sweaty. I just don't know that he ever recovered from Donald Trump in 2016 beating him as badly as he did in Florida."

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"Marco Rubio once seen as future of the Republican Party," Scarborough added. "A Time Magazine cover talking about him being the future of the Republican Party, and what I saw last night was just a shadow of that guy."

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