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I disagree. Trump was able to respond to most of the retorts when allowed in the debate format, while Biden was rigid and unable to follow the path of discourse nearly as well as Trump. Trump started getting bogged down in the 2nd half of the debate because he wanted to get the last word in on previous topics, but is a natural extrovert and engaged with the audience and connected to viewers while Biden was unable to be creative in spur of the moment debate. This is especially concerning as he should have ample experience with engaging people and being in the center of attention every day. How often does Biden interact with staff, intelligence agencies, CEOs, diplomats, and international leaders? The president isn't a programming job, it's a customer service job, and Biden has just publicly shown he is completely unable to interact with people in a meaningful day to day experience. Trump blusters, speaks in hyperbole, brags relentlessly, but he does it in a way that is immediately engaging and creates dialogue and interaction between himself and whoever he is engaged with.
I feel like the day-to-day reality of that is very different than a debate though. In real life he can pause, take his time, collect his thoughts. He can schedule the difficult meetings for a time when he's ready, not late at night while he has a cold. The meetings would be mostly focused on one topic, jumping around from "the economy" to "foreign policy" with 1 minute on each. And he could just focus on the issues instead of trying to deliver punchy zingers for applause.
Trump is very good at the reality TV aspect of saying dramatic things on camera, but he was terrible at actually getting anything done as president.
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Everything about the format of the debate broke down. I was talking with my wife about this.
Both candidates effectively refused to give any substantive answer on Gaza. Trump largely bloviated on the IMHO unfair yes or no question about a specific future policy, I think it was asking whether he would sign a federal abortion ban of some sort. I don't blame him for not answering it.
Both candidates also mostly regurgitated talking points. Trump more successfully IMHO, in that he actually finished the sentence. If you knew the answers ahead of time, you could guess at what Biden was trying to get to, but he rarely got there. Some of their talking points were direct answers to the questions, some weren't. Pretty par for the course IMHO. Trump was the only one to think on his feet in any capacity.
The format was supposed to be 2 minutes to answer, 1 minute rebuttal, 30 seconds to respond. This held up pretty OK at first. But at a certain point they dropped the 30 second response, so Trump would begin his next 2 minute answer doing the 30 second response he was itching to do. By the time the candidates were talking over each other, arguing about their golf handicap, any pretense of the mic being muted when it wasn't their turn to speak was out the window. I first noticed this break down when they unmuted the mic for Biden when he wanted to talk over Trump, and I then I noticed it a few minutes later when they unmuted the mic for Trump so he could talk over Biden.
All I heard post debate was how much Trump lied. But IMHO they were the sorts of "lies" they are broadly subject to debate (is Biden or Trump responsible for inflation) or directionally correct (I'm not sure illegal immigrants have raped and killed as many people as Trump claims, but they have and we don't like it). Biden's lies were bizarre and brazen, like claiming no service members have died during his administration, or that the border patrol endorsed him, both of which are bold faced, no way to shade it lies.
It didn't break down as much as it did in 2020, but I do agree with you that they were hamstringing Trump by not letting him have time to respond and it slowed down the debate topics because he was forced to reiterate old topics and it derailed the debate. This didn't bother me too much as I've attended too many events to know how quickly things become disorganized or run late, the best laid plans often run awry.
This may also be why Trump's 'lying' doesn't bother me much because it's the lying of humans interacting of each other. It's not a calculated lie to manipulate people but the lie of being in the moment, of verbal sparring, bullshitting, and the barstool one-up-mansship that men do to each other. It's why I find the pundits constantly talking about the strange things that come out of his mouth as juvenile and childish and ultimately doesn't sway my opinions of him. Trump doesn't try to hide who he is, so his personality and choices doesn't bother me nearly as much as the way that Biden, Hillary Clinton, or Pelosi tend to lie to manipulate, deceive , and gaslight.
The lies Biden espoused were defensive 'nu uh'. He was on the back foot the entire time, intellectually and socially. It was kids fighting on the playground, not a nuanced discussion or breakdown on policy. I do think Trump should have continually associated Biden's failure to curb illegal immigration with drug trafficking of deadly narcotics/opioids and the loss of (black) Americans to addiction instead of direct murders, but it's very hard to have a nuanced take in a heat of the moment debate and decided to stay on his course.
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