I agree, clearly an intelligent man and a worthwhile read. His take on Ukraine is spot on.
A few of those nonsequitors seem to be related to battling a cold (eg, the comment on his voice) or referring to other aides who are perhaps moving through the room. TIME should do a better job with annotations in these cases, and not just the one time he mixed up Putin and Jinping.
Also, no journalist would ever pose some of these questions to Trump. Values based vs practical base? The man would think you were talking about baseball
Read the Full Transcript of Joe Biden's Interview With TIME (time.com)