No. of Recommendations: 9
"Trump at his rally today tried to explain his electric battery-driven boat story. It did not go well.
"Now they'll say all these stories are terrible. Well, these stories have, you know, you heard my story in the boat with the shark, right? I got killed on that. They thought I was rambling. I'm not rambling. We can't get the boat to float. The battery is so heavy. [What now? An aircraft carrier weighs over 100,000 tons and floats fine.] So then I start talking about asking questions. You know, I have an, I had an uncle who was a great professor at MIT for many years, long, I think the longest tenure ever. Very smart, had three different degrees and you know, so I have an aptitude for things. You know, there is such a thing as an aptitude. [His uncle was a professor and had "three different degrees" so somehow that gives Donald Trump an "aptitude"? I said, well, what would happen if this boat is so heavy and started to sink and you're on the top of the boat. Do you get electrocuted or not? In other words, the boat is going down and you're on the top, will the electric currents flow through the water and wipe you out? And let's say there's a shark about 10 yards over there. Would I have to immediately abandon or could I ride the electric down and he said, sir, nobody's ever asked us that question. But sir, I don't know. I said, well, I want to know because I guarantee you one thing, I don't care what happens. I'm staying with the electric, I'm not getting over with it. So I tell that story. And the fake news they go, he told this crazy story with electric. It's actually not crazy. It's sort of a smart story, right? Sort of like, you know, it's like the snake, it's a smart when you, you figure what you're leaving in, right? You're bringing it in the, you know, the snake, right? The snake and the snake. I tell that and they do the same thing."
I think the Biden camp did a pretty good job at negotiating the details of the debates. They got pretty much everything they wanted (no audience, microphones cut off, etc.)
I think one of the biggest mistakes Biden's campaign made was not asking for the debate to be longer and allow for longer answers by the candidates. I think if Donald Trump had longer to answer questions more of the long, rambling, nonsensical word salads (like what you quoted above) will come out.
Most of America doesn't see just how crazy and rambling much of his speaking is. His supporters at his rallies ignore it because they ignore anything they find inconvenient to their worldview. The rest of America never sees it because the rants are so long and rambling that it is impossible to summarize/squeeze them in to the minute or two new networks have to talk about his speeches.
I think it would have given the Biden campaign a nice way of demonstrating which candidate is more coherent and mentally sharper. Both candidates will likely make verbal gaffes (calling someone by the wrong name, etc.), but it would have been made clear which candidate is sharp enough to discuss policy positions coherently and which one ends up talking about electric boats and sharks.
