Between the ceremony and speeches, a body language expert says there’s a lot more to learn about U.S. President Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday.
“Once you get the spotlight in this way, you’ve got to be very careful of the body language that you’re showing, because one image will be construed into what anybody wants it to be construed into, ” Mark Bowden told CTVNews.ca.
Bowden is a best-selling author and the founder and president of Truthplane, a training company that specializes in verbal and nonverbal communication. From Trump’s infamous handshakes to First Lady Melania Trump’s kiss-blocking hat, here are five body language takeaways from the events in Washington.
JD Vance’s ‘air of optimism’
Bowden says JD Vance had an “air of optimism to him” during the inauguration at the U.S. Capitol building.
“He’s kind of bouncing lightly on his heels as he enters in, doing a lot of raised eyebrows as well… so lots of pushes against gravity,” Bowden said from Toronto. “He’s projecting himself as optimistic and friendly and approachable.”
While Vance stood and applauded for many parts of Trump’s inauguration speech, Bowden notes that the new vice-president only smiled and laughed when Trump mentioned his plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the "Gulf of America."
“So a bit of a mixed amusement and maybe potentially a bit of disbelief from Vance on that one,” said Bowden, who has worked with companies like Shopify and politicians including Canadian former prime minister Stephen Harper.
Melania Trump’s ‘barrier’ hat
First Lady Melania Trump wore a wide-brimmed navy hat that largely shielded her eyes and created a brief-but-awkward moment when Trump leaned in to kiss her on the cheek. With the brim blocking Trump’s head, the gesture turned into an air kiss.
“Clearly they haven’t worked out that if he’s going to give her a kiss as she enters, that she can’t really wear that hat,” Bowden said. “So it looks like very much a barrier between Trump and Melania. It’s also quite a big barrier between Melania and the rest of the public: very difficult to see her eyes, she’s very shaded.”
Bowden says the issue could have been avoided through communication, planning and perhaps even a rehearsal. Trump, however, succeeds in a second attempt at a kiss later in the ceremony.
“That imagery of him knocking his head against her hat and not being able to get access to her, again, isn’t a great optic for their relationship,” Bowden said. “It’s interesting, later on though, he does find a way to get a kiss in, which is he has to go way lower on the cheek, almost down to the neck.”
The hat could also be symbolic of Melania’s approach to her position in the White House.
“Maybe it’s an indicator of her first ladyship,” Bowden added. “She isn’t often that visible, she has kept herself very much off with Barron in the former presidency. Maybe, again, we won’t see very much of her this time around, just like we couldn’t see very much of her eyes.”
Trump’s handshake
When Trump shakes hands with the first spiritual speakers at the inauguration, Bowden noticed that the president didn’t try to overpower or pull them in with his notoriously strong-armed handshake.
“Usually he’ll try and unbalance somebody as he shakes hands with them, he’s not doing that and we can quite see why,” Bowden explained. “It does suggest that any time he does that handshake where he pulls somebody off balance, he’s doing it on purpose; it helps us understand that it’s not an unconscious default for him, it’s a conscious effort to pull people off balance.”
Bowden says Trump also gave his most heartfelt and enthusiastic applause following a choir performance.
“His hands come up to chest-height to give that applause,” Bowden said. “So I think he genuinely enjoyed and [was] genuinely passionate about how well that choir did.”
Trump takes ‘ceremonial’ tone
Bowden notes that Trump took a “ceremonial” and “subdued” tone as he largely read his inauguration speech from a teleprompter before taking his typical conversational approach in unscripted comments following the main ceremony.
“Normally he’d be a little bit more bombastic, a little more passionate about what he’s saying,” Bowden said. “You only see when he isn’t reading from the teleprompter when he does his classic repetition of certain images or phrases.”
For example, Trump seemed to get his most enthusiastic response when he promised more oil and gas exploitation and declared, “We will drill, baby, drill!”
“That one really hit home with the audience,” Bowden said. “He is going to feel more comfortable doing his own thing off-script.”
Biden and Harris show ‘respect’
Former president Joe Biden and vice-president Kamala Harris were present for the inauguration, but obviously did not display the same kind of enthusiasm as Trump’s supporters during the new president’s speech.
“They weren’t standing for some of the rhetoric, but we can understand why: they’re there in many ways [to show] that there is an opposition,” Bowden said. “It’s not their particular job to stand up for what the other president is delivering. It is their job, however, to attend the inauguration, to attend the office.”
With Trump claiming that the 2020 U.S. election was rigged against him, he was notably absent from Biden’s inauguration four years earlier.
“They’re not standing for the same policy as him but they are attending the inauguration,” Bowden said of Biden and Harris. “So they are in respect of the office, but not necessarily the politics of the officer.”
