Tonight’s GOP debate in New Hampshire was chock full of the usual hateful rhetoric, amateur policy discussions, and petty name-calling that we’ve been seeing for months – but Marco Rubio takes the cake for worst debate performance thus far. Rubio was stuck on repeat, and delivered the same rehearsed, canned answers again and again in a debate performance that pundits called “awkward” and “mind-boggling.”
In case you missed RubioBot’s short-circuit tonight, here’s a quick recap:
@blakehounshell: Rubio’s performance tonight, given his past success, is utterly bizarre.
@igorbobic: Rubio needs to learn how to call an audible
@rebeccagberg: Marco Rubio keeps repeating the same talking point that Christie brutally mocked him for. Mind-boggling.
@RosieGray: did Rubio short-circuit?
@marincogan: Oh man Marco, let the talking point go. Let it go. Let it go.
@igorvolsky: RUBIO = VINE. ON LOOP.
@pbump: “i dont wanna go back out there coach” “you gotta” “i cant. i cant do…” “MARCO. you gotta”
@MikeGrunwald: Rubio staff working so hard on telepathic messages warning him not to use “Obama knows what he’s doing” spiel in closing statement.
@DouthatNYT: I’ve watched Rubio for a long time, always thought that critique of him as a talking-points robot was way overblown. But oh dear.
@FranklinFoer: Marco Rubio can’t even counterpunch with reverting to his stump speech.
@jbouie: I have never seen anything like this. When met with a head on attack, Rubio reverted to the same exact lines almost four times.
@niaCNN: Rubio is repeating the same answer on Obama. Again.
@jameshohmann: Awkwardly, Rubio has spent the night defending Obama as competent.
@RichLowry: Rubio thinks he’s on message, when he is really validating a central critique against him
@CandaceSmith_: Rubio has now repeated his “Obama knows what he’s doing line” or some version at least four times
@RichLowry: Rubio now repeating Obama point for a fourth time
@Bencjacobs: If Marco Rubio was a Beatles’ song he’d be the last ten seconds of A Day In The Life on an LP
@seungminkim: So Rubio is responding to Christie’s Gang of Eight jabs by talking about Obamacare, guns, …. ?
@ZekeJMiller: Sounds like audience booed Rubio again for driving the same Obama talking point
@MaeveReston: Does Marco Rubio only have one answer to every question?
@SabrinaSiddiqui: Yikes. Rubio gets booed for repeating — for a fourth time — his line about Obama trying to change America.
@timkmak: Rubio repeating this line again that Christie previously dismissed as pre-canned
@pbump: Audience appears to boo Rubio reverting to his talking points again?
@RosieGray: so Rubio’s repeating that line again…
@igorvolsky: Jon Karl sums up Rubio: “he repeated himself three times particularly when Christie’s criticism was you repeat yourself with canned speech”
@BuzzFeedAndrew: Marco Rubio Used To Say Barack Obama “Doesn’t Know What He Is Doing” A Lot https://www.buzzfeed.com/andrewkaczynski/marco-rubio-used-to-say-barack-obama-doesnt-know-what-he-is?utm_term=.erLJMAD9M … there’s been a glitch in the Rubio bot
@WillieGeist: True story: 8-year-old daughter walks through room as Rubio says,”Obama knows exactly what he’s doing” and says, “Didn’t he just say that?”
@JohnJHarwood: Rubio appears more rattled than in any other debate by far
@RosieGray: just me or did Rubio seem a bit shook up?
@michellemalkin: Damn, Rubio’s team gonna have to stick a new talking points CD in his head during the next bathroom break. #GOPDebate
@HenryJGomez: Wow. Rubio is repeating VERBATIM something he just said a couple of minutes ago.
@sahilkapur: Rubio says Clinton is “unqualified” to be POTUS — rare departure from his stump speech where he says she’s “disqualified.”
@mckaycoppins: How many times has Rubio said “referendum on our identity as a nation and as a people” tonight?
Published: Feb 6, 2016