CNN Fills Jury Deliberation Air Time With Scaramucci Analyzing Trump’s Body Language
Generally speaking, body language “analysis” is a last-resort, time-filling way to fill a segment when there isn’t much news to report. So while CNN tried to come up with coverage of former President Donald Trump’s hush money trial while the jury deliberated behind closed doors, they enlisted someone who apparently has extensive knowledge of Trump’s body language: Anthony Scaramucci.
Scaramucci, who famously served as Trump’s White House communications director for a brief ten days, is no fan of the former president and told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday that he believes Trump is “nervous” about a possible guilty verdict. And since the jury could be deliberating for a whole Scaramucci, Tapper also asked about Trump’s so-called “tics” or “tells” about his mental state:
Tapper: You’ve talked about some of the nervous tics, as you call them, that the former president does when he’s speaking to cameras, like moving his hands in and out, as he did yesterday. Can you tell us more about what those are and what you think they signal?
Scaramucci: Well, you know, the double fist pump is sort of this solidarity pump, letting people know that he’s, he’s chipper. It’s sort of part of that dance move sequence that he does, which looks ridiculous, but for whatever reason, the people that are in his follower group like it, but the accordion move is usually a sign of nervousness.
And so when you find Mr. Trump saying something that he really doesn’t believe, or he has to dial into a frame of mind to push himself to say something, he does the accordion move. And so you can see that on full display yesterday with the accordion move. The circle move is when he’s speaking more with certainty. So, it’s fairly predictable with President Trump, you just have to watch his behavior.
He can’t hide the shame of what’s going on, though. You can see it on his face. He can’t really hide the shame. He knows what he did, and he knows what he’s in trouble for. He probably thinks the case is ridiculous, and we can debate whether or not the case should be brought against him or not. But it’s here now, and he knows what he did. And so now he’s just waiting to figure out how bad it’s going to be. The evidence is out there, Jake, and so there are 12 jurors who will have to make that decision, but the evidence is pretty overwhelming. He knows that, which is why he’s invoking the whole “Mother Teresa” line yesterday.
Watch the video above via CNN.
