He did not send questions to the White House ahead of time, nor did he get approval for the topics to be discussed during the interview.
Recording began as soon as Biden was miked and sitting in the chair that Friday at 2:50 p.m. Earlier that day, Biden’s press staff had said the president would have only 10 minutes for the interview, instead of the previously agreed upon 20 minutes. We requested that the interview go the full 20 minutes. You can hear during the unedited interview a couple of moments when White House staff interrupted to signal that the interview should come to a close. Biden seemed eager to continue talking.
Definitely not sarcasm.
An issue still remains for me though: this interview is almost a year old. And the state of the union address (which was also very good) was almost 7 months ago. If he has another strong speech or interview soon, I will be completely reassured.
A strong second debate would be awesome too, but I see no reason now for Trump to agree to another one.