Van Jones scoffed at 2020 presidential candidate Joe Biden’s central claim of being the only Democratic candidate tough enough to defeat President Donald Trump, citing the former vice president’s admission in a CNN interview that he wasn’t prepared for the hits he took in the first debate: “This guy doesn’t look like, at least tonight, like he’s ready to go head to head with Donald Trump or really with anybody.”

Speaking with Anderson Cooper 360 guest host Jim Sciutto, Jones reiterated that Sen. Kamala Harris’s direct and highly effective attacks during the debate about Biden’s opposition to desegregation via busing should not have been a surprise. That Biden acknowledged to CNN’s Chris Cuomo he wasn’t ready for them and didn’t counterpunch effectively, Jones said, eroded the former vice president’s core message to voters.

“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,” Jones said. “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.”

Jones recalled his first reaction to Biden’s exchange with Cuomo. “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,'” Jones said. “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.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.