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In the wake of Tuesday night’s vice presidential debate, former FBI body language expert Joe Navarro reported on Politico his analysis of the candidates, claiming that he used his 50 years of experience to “figure out what [JD] Vance and [Tim] Walz were really thinking and feeling behind all the talking points.” It is a mostly even-handed interpretation with some interesting points, albeit some predictable spin in favor of Democrat Walz.
Navarro listed eight significant signs he observed from the two candidates:
1) Right at the top of that list, under the heading “Yes, Vance’s beard matters” – bolded to make sure you know it matters – Navarro seized upon the Republican’s facial hair to suggest it makes Vance off-putting to women voters. “[R]esearch indicates that voters see beards as (surprise, surprise) more masculine,” Navarro writes. “That can be positive to some, reading as strength and competence. But to others, especially women, it can be negative, conveying aggression and opposition to feminist ideals.” [emphasis added]
Is Politico trying to highlight here for women that Vance’s beard is a symbol of patriarchal misogyny? Is it trying to trigger those childless Democrat cat ladies who were offended by Vance’s notorious “childless cat ladies” putdown?
2) In all fairness to Navarro, he then complimented Vance on the “precision grip” he used several times throughout the debate: “bringing his index finger and thumb together, almost like an OK sign.” It is a gesture, Navarro explains, which “communicates confidence and a command of the issue being discussed… It’s a sign of fluency and authority and it is very persuasive when utilized in those precise moments.”
Fact check: true. Despite his own later claim that he rated 11 on a scale of nervousness from 1 to 10 during the debate, Vance exuded relentless confidence, authority, and persuasiveness throughout.
3) The body language expert then noted Walz’s tendency to address the viewer directly, even pointing at the camera with his index finger: “It was a bold, almost accusatory gesture.” Navarro says this can come across as hostile or threatening, but he found it effective for getting our attention. Maybe so, but no one likes to have a finger wagged at them.
4) Navarro went on to claim, rather amusingly, that Walz’s “eye-popping” indicated passion and emotional intensity, such as during an exchange about abortion – a favorite policy of Walz and running mate Kamala Harris. He praised it as “a dynamic and emphatic facial motion that… gave extra weight to his feelings and held our gaze.”
I beg to differ – for me and almost certainly most other viewers, Walz’s bulging eyes conveyed panic and desperation. But hey, I’m no body language expert.
5) During the aforementioned exchange about abortion, Navarro observed, “Vance did something striking: He placed his hand over his heart and tapped his chest,” communicating “deep emotion and sincerity.” Navarro expressed reluctance to concede that Vance was being sincere at this moment, only warning that if “it appears contrived, you are in trouble. Coming off as dishonest is worse than doing nothing at all.”
True, but I’m going to confirm that it did indeed suggest authenticity and sincerity, qualities that Vance always gives off.
6) Navarro argued that Walz furrowed his eyebrows, which communicates doubt and insecurity as well as disagreement. “While Vance had the floor, this was a way for Walz to silently say, ‘No way, that’s not right, and I am going to challenge you on this.’”
Again, as with Walz’s popping eyes, I’m going to dispute Navarro’s interpretation and say that the furrowed eyebrows suggested worry and desperation.
7) Navarro noted that when Walz brought up the subject of Project 2025 “Vance exhibited a little tell that carried a big message: a slight squinting of the eyes and a small frown.” To Navarro, this “clearly” indicated that Project 2025 is “a sore subject.” He warned that “[w]e have to guard against such behaviors in high-stakes interchanges like negotiations or, say, vice-presidential debates — they reveal to your opponent what topics you want to avoid and where your weaknesses lie.”
I would argue that Vance does not find Project 2025 a triggering subject or a weakness, since it’s only a Left-wing conspiracy theory which Trump has disavowed numerous times.
8) Navarro concluded by fairly praising both Vance and Walz on a move he calls “turn yielding,”
when you demonstrate respect for someone by yielding your time and allowing them to speak. We can signal that it is their turn by framing the body toward them, or by tilting our heads—nonverbally communicating that they have your attention, that you are willing to listen. This was a marked contrast to the presidential debates, when candidates spoke all over one another.
Navarro credited this to both candidates’ roots in “that famous Midwestern politeness.” If so, our country desperately needs more of it.
No matter how Politico may want to subtly spin it, the vice-presidential debate was a decisive victory for JD Vance and thus for Donald Trump too. It would not be an exaggeration to state that Vance may have just handed Trump the White House. The radical totalitarian Walz, whom the Left has tried to sell as “nice dad Tim” and “Coach Walz,” sabotaged himself in numerous ways, perhaps most devastatingly when he utterly collapsed as the moderators confronted him about his false claim that he was in China during the Tiananmen Square protests. Another mortal self-wound came when he claimed the First Amendment doesn’t protect “hate speech.” And then of course, another nail in the coffin was when he weirdly described himself a being “friends with school shooters.”
JD Vance, by contrast, was cool, calm, collected, and in control of the facts. In one word, he presented himself as presidential. Can anyone honestly claim that Tim Walz or his epically incompetent running mate Kamala Harris ever come across as even vice presidential, much less presidential?
Follow Mark Tapson at Culture Warrior.
Of course in a country where reason and rationality are eroding decade by decade experts at reading tea leaves, reading tarot cards, interpreting the stars, and interpreting body language will appear.
Even that arch mystic, Sigmund Freud, had to concede that sometimes a cigar is only a cigar.
And failure is only failure.
Must be tough not being able to comment on the subject at hand.
Cigars, Cigarettes, Cigarillos
Body language is real, genius. Navarro is an absolute liar but if somebody glares at you with his fists clenched, even you could interpret that body language. And there’s plenty more, especially for an expert like Greg Hartley, who was an army interrogator for special forces, not a lying FBI enemy of America.
Navarro is a lying liar aka democrat activist. Her opinion is based on communist lies and the communist LGBTQP agenda.
To these marxist democrats idenity
policies is everything. Common sense, reality and FACT doesn’t count. 100% is emotionally based idenity politics.
Why? Democrats have no true policy that functions for all citizens at the same time. Cultural marxism is the lefts policy.
Democrat politicians don’t say what they believe, they say what they think the people who give them money and votes want to hear. They are not being held accountable by their constituents and their complicit MSM. They can and do safely and shamelessly say stuff (no matter how untrue and irrational it may be) that gets them through the moment. Their truth-starved supporters believe what they are being told and repeat it over and over again without realizing how stupid they sound and how brainwashed they are.
“No true policy that functions for all citizens at the same time” is the perfect explaination for why so many traditional democratic supporters are switching sides this election cycle.
She lied about EVERYTHING except that it was good decorum for Vance and Awolz to yield their times promptly, and NOBODY needed that explained to them.
I wrote in a comment below that Navarro was OK but I was just being polite when I shouldn’t have. You describe her honestly. She’s a D-Bag operative and her lies were ridiculous.
Tapson did a better job at interpreting the body language of the candidates because he’s honest. Navarro did a lousy job because she’s a liar.
She probably had her “evaluation” written before the debate even took place. Cue the flying monkey.
The dumbass is a buffoon who isn’t & never will be ready for any position. He proved that to himself when he abandoned his National Guard unit.
Those wide eyes were simply a reflection of a bewildered “deer-in-the-headlights”; not passion.
At least the audience was spared his clownish “jazz hands” gestures (his version of DEI Kamala’s nervous, annoying laugh.)
Waltz is a radical Marxist revolutionary, he is dangerous and corrupt. If these people get in, it’s over for our country, I truly believe this. (Censorship and lawfare against Christians and conservatives will be the norm, stolen elections and re-education camps will follow). The Republicans will never win another election if we lose this one.
Of course you’re right.
These leftist garbage will stuff vagrant illegals in swing states for 4 years – guaranteeing 1 party rule for generations.
Prime example is California.
It’s only a 2 party state in the primaries . . .
Socialist? or Communist?
I live in CA and ballots will start to be mailed out on 10-7. They’ll be mailed to millions of illegal aliens,hundreds of thousands of people who’ve moved and who knows how many dead people.
Isn’t that called a coup? Actually, I think they’ve already take over. Now they are just trying to cement the deal. I’m voting for trump. I love America. Sure, it’s not perfect, but I don’t want to start over with a system known for death and failure. Sympathies to California. I escaped years ago. Not a single person in my
neighborhood is democrat, yay.
Wuhan Walz is a Chinese asset. Nobody goes to China over thirty times unless he’s colluding with the CCP in some way. And he conducted multiple student “tours” (CCP recruitment drives.)
“…… Kamala’s nervous, annoying laugh.”
What interesting is that as much as I can’t stand AOC and think of her as a low wattage dumbass, she’s far more articulate than Kamala Harris. For that matter even Ilhan Omar is more articulate than Harris and English isn’t her native language.
I think the dems know full well and can see that Kamala is just not that smart or articulate. Moreover, they know she’s going to lose but have to back her for president anyway because she is the a sitting democrat VP and is entitled to it.
By the way, the democrat controlled media can lie all they want. The fact is, Kamala isn’t liked at all. The vast majority of blacks, Hispanics, Asians and other ethnic groups do not support her and intend to vote for Trump.
That truth becomes obvious once you ignore/tune out the democrat controlled MSM and get unbiased & unfiltered news and video directly from alternative sources (i.e., the internet.)
With the advent of the internet, the MSM, to an increasing extent, is become an anachronism. A relic of yesteryear when there were only radio and 3 TV networks. All of which was controlled by the Uniparty establishment..
Back then, what the American people heard & saw is what the Uniparty establishment wanted the American people to hear & see. That allowed them to control the narrative and shape our opinions. The internet has laid waste to their control over what we think and how we came to think it.
It’s no small wonder that the MSM is becoming increasingly disenchanted with the internet. They pine for the “good ole days.”
In my humble opinion, f**k the MSM! They can go pound sand up their fat tuchuses for all I care!
Dems’ project 2025 effort fell apart when the authors endorsed kamala. Now it’s just another glaring example of the dishonesty of the dems. They’ll still push it, but it backfires with one irrefutable fact.
Waltz is a clown…His demeanor communicates that he is uneasy with himself and has low self esteem.
And what is that clownish bowing that he likes to do??…what does it say??…and why does he do it??..his wife does similar.
Both are clowns….underqualified for the lofty office of VP.
They bow to the spirit of Satan.
For the first few minutes of the debate I thought Walz must have called out sick and they stuck Curley, from the 3 Stooges, is as a substitute. “I’m a knucklehead!” Nyuck, nyuck, nyuch! Vance should have poked him in the eyes.
Body language expert, my rear end. If you want a genuine expert who understands every nuance of physical communication, hire an experienced theater director. They know their craft and know how to reach an audience, get the laughs, applause, etc. It’s not some secret psy-ops ploy. Rather, it’s something as old as human civilization. As Frank Zappa once put it, “Politics is the entertainment division of the military industrial complex.” .
Walz looks like a humorless Don Rickles.
He also looks like a hemorrhoid.
Actually, Project 2025 is an amazing project of the Heritage Foundation where they have developed plans to return our federal agencies to apolitical agencies, something which will likely cause a lot of leftist heads to roll which terrifies the Left but should be amazingly welcome news to the majority of Americans!!
That’s hilarious that the body “expert” finds that JD Vance’s beard “can be negative, conveying aggression and opposition to feminist ideals.”
I remember when in 1972 George Carlin pointed out that people were afraid of his beard, but for completely different reasons. It might make you look like a communist.
Carlin pointed that “Lenin had a BEARD”!
He then went on to describe the difference between communism and American freedom by further pointing out…
“Gabby Hayes had WHISKERS”!!
I have a beard and I don’t have any problems with women. They aren’t afraid of me.
That garbage about Vance’s beard conveying aggression should have come with a spit take warning. My wife and I were on our way out to lunch and I was reading this Politico tripe to her as she was driving us. When I got to the ‘aggression’ part she says, “Read that again.” I read it out to her again. She replies, “I have news for that fool– real women like masculine men!”
And there’s the rub. Democrat women are all in for the new definition of masculinity as portrayed by Emhoff and Walz. Back in the day we used to call them “pansies”. Probably not gay but more like your mother than your father. Women who go for these guys are more like your father than you mother. These are the men and women Roger Waters wrote about in The Wall:
“….and when they get home at night their fat and psychopathic wives beat them to within inches of their lives.”
” Walz’s bulging eyes conveyed panic and desperation. But hey, I’m no body language expert.”
It is quite possible Navarro isn’t one either. I have observed these retired FBI folks turned into “experts” for purposes of the media’s agenda.
There’s a much better body language and behavior expert named Gregory Hartley who appears regularly on Greg Kelly’s show on Newsmax. He speaks Arabic and when he was in the army he worked with special forces in Desert Storm as an interrogator, that’s how good he is at interpreting body language and behavior. And he’s a patriot and good guy so you won’t hear any D-Bag slant from him.
I love watching that guy explain body language. I learn something each time.
I saw Navarro and some chick on TV and wasn’t impressed. Navarro is OK but he’s FBI and so untrustworthy.
Vance reminds me of Teddy Roosevelt. in his youth…no?
Yes. He has a similar attitude.
I meant “she” in regards to Navarro. I have no idea who the other broad is. Just another phony like Navarro.
Is i just me, but it seems Mr. Waltz looks like Don Rickles.