The Today Show had body language expert Janine Driver on as a guest to analyze the body language of presidentical candidates Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, and Marco Rubio. It was Driver's analyses of the body language of Hillary and Trump that caused some really fascinating reactions from host Natalie Morales who was clearly uncomfortable with the analyses. So let us now enter Natalie's Discomfort Zone:
[Hillary Clinton speaking on a video.]
JANINE DRIVER: Now let's rewind. You might not have even seen it. Did you see it?
WILLIE GEIST: No.
DRIVER: It's a shoulder shrug. Watch this. A shoulder shrug indicates uncertainty. Look at this. Watch here. We have one shrug already. Two shrugs right here. We're going to have a third. There we go. We have the hat trick of shoulder shrugs right here. A shoulder shrug is uncertainty. So when you're saying a definitive answer, "listen I'm doing this not for me, I'm doing it for the public" and I shrug, it cancels out your message. A shoulder shrug is uncertainty.
NATALIE MORALES: Hmm...
Hmm... Did Natalie Morales just try to signal she wants to cancel out the body language expert's unwelcome message?
DRIVER: So we don't know what the catalyst is here for Hillary but it will hurt her message.
GEIST: And you think the voters pick up on those cues subconsciously?
DRIVER: Yes, subconsciously they do pick up on it. Our brain, it's called an N400. If I say "I'll have a peanut butter and jelly on my socks please" your brain says, "wait a minute, I don't understand that." When you...
And right here a rapidly blinking Natalie leaps to Hillary's defense:
MORALES: Is that a sign of humility maybe though?
Please, Janine, give me a even a tiny lifeline to help Hillary out. Unfortunately for Natalie, the body language expert shuts her down by being quite definite about what it means:
DRIVER: No, it's always uncertainty ...She's imploding here.
Not a welcome message for Natalie so she switches to the subject of Donald Trump where hopefully she will hear something more to her liking:
MORALES: Okay! Let's take a look at Donald Trump. Of course again we heard a lot of what he had to say. You read the body language. Tell me what you see.
"Okay!" Natalie said that a bit too loudly and though I'm not a body language expert, that coupled with the way her eyes opened widely and her head pulled back at the same time indicated she wanted to get off the topic of Hillary pronto.
DRIVER: I want you to watch his hands. I want you to rewind this. So let's rewind and watch Donald Trump's hands.... I like to think of the monkey with the tambourine cymbals. And I'm not saying this to disrespect Donald Trump. This move right here that he does constantly. Remember when you wind up this toy. He does this move constantly. This banging of his hands in the air.
MORALES: And what does this tell you?
Oh joy! This must mean that Donald Trump is like an unthinking robotic toy, right? Unfortunately for Natalie she gets an answer she most definitely does not want to hear:
DRIVER: It is connected with people who think outside of the box. Creative thinking. That's why you get someone from the real estate industry running for president. That's why you get a man who is going to be on the front lines talking to the border patrol. He's going to think outside the box. Creative thinking. If you want someone that has that strategy with creativity, Donald Trump might be that guy.
No, no! Not the message that Natalie Morales wants to hear so with rapidly blinking eyes and arms moving as if to erase what we just heard, she interjects with this:
MORALES: We're not letting politics get into this. It's just you reading the body language.
Please don't draw any political conclusions from what you just heard. Or so Morales hopes. Perhaps that same body language expert could return to the Today Show to analyze the body language of Natalie Morales.
