re: Which presidents were the best public speakers?

Obama could read a teleprompter adeptly, meaning he understood inflection, pause for effect, subtleties that most lack. But as far as off the cuff, he stuttered and stammered and has trouble collecting and organizing his thoughts before speaking.

Trump is even better at speeches than Reagan, but Reagan was effective with prepared documents. Trump deviates from the script too much to equal Reagan.

Carter was ineffective. Clinton you just couldn't (and still can't) trust a single word that comes out of his mouth so that interferes with perception of speaking ability. Clinton is the slimy used car salesman of POTUS history.

HW Bush was effective but not charismatic. And GW had a hard time speaking both off the cuff and prepared canned stuff. Ford was about the same as HW, effective but not charismatic.