Experts Analyze Kamala Harris’ Debate Body Language

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump faced each other for the first time in Tuesday night’s presidential debate, and even before the debate began, their greetings said a lot about their mindsets, body language experts told HuffPost.

Harris walked up to Trump’s podium, extended her hand and began shaking hands.

“The fact that she invaded his space tells us that it was a power move,” says behavioral scientist Abby Marono, because this initiation sends a signal that says, “I’m not afraid of you.”

Body language expert Mark Bowden said Trump is known for throwing people off balance with his handshakes. It also helped that Harris decided to approach him with “tremendous speed,” he said.

“The best way to deal with that is to come in with hot, strong, solid arms and actually get his instincts to try to stop you rather than pull you,” he said. “She has the speed advantage and the intention advantage, so he can’t get his hands on her in any way.”

She introduced herself as she shook Trump’s hand and said, “Kamala Harris.” “Let’s have a good debate.” Trump replied, “It’s nice to meet you. Enjoy it.”

Maronyo said Harris’ introduction was professional, yet polite and conveyed, “I’m approachable, warm and inviting.”

Meanwhile, Trump shook Harris’s hand without directly touching her shoulders and “seemed caught off guard” because his greeting “didn’t make sense” in the context of a presidential debate, said Dennis Dudley, a clinical psychologist and author of “Work It! Get In, Get Noticed, Get Promoted.”

Maronyo explained that demonstrating dominance involves controlling someone’s space and time. Harris shook her elbow once with her handshake, and Trump gave her a smaller handshake. “It’s like taking back a little bit of that power by holding her there,” she suggested.

After the 90-minute debate, Trump quickly left the stage. But if Trump wanted to counter Harris’s “show of dominance,” he should have had one last handshake after the debate. “Okay, you came up to me. I’m going to show you the same level of respect and invade your space at the end,” Maronyo suggested.

There is no rule requiring presidential candidates to shake hands during a debate, but Dudley said Harris’s doing so was “a tremendous show of power.”

“Some people think the position of power is to march in here and ignore her and not shake her hand,” Dudley said. “But the real position of power is to own your own self and your own space and be the person who can come in and put your hand out and say, ‘Hi, I’m Kamala Harris.’ That’s the position of power.”

Few of us will ever meet our first political opponent on national television, but at some point, most of us will encounter a colleague we dislike or someone who tries to threaten us.

You can disarm a professional or personal enemy with a deliberate handshake. “The best thing we can do is get over it and act in a professional manner,” Dudley said.

Maronyo says it’s best to avoid “too much of a grip,” which can seem aggressive, but also to avoid hesitation, which is a sign of a lack of confidence. “Don’t grip too hard, but don’t do a dead fish with just your fingertips,” Dudley advises.

Instead, “hold on really tight,” Maronyo said.

Harris and Trump made eye contact when they shook hands on Tuesday. Making eye contact when shaking hands is “a sign of confidence,” Maronyo said. “It shows that you’re engaged. It shows that you’re respectful to the other person. You’re there. You’re present.”

Dudley says you don’t have to fake a bright smile when you meet someone you don’t like, but you shouldn’t frown or make a face, because that makes you look immature and less powerful.

Ideally, you should pump your hands at the elbows, as this shows confidence rather than aggression.

Trump is known for grabbing someone’s hand and pulling it up and down with his shoulder in a “saw” motion, said Dudley, who studied Trump’s greeting videos. This “throws people off balance,” she said. “We want to make sure people are stable when they’re shaking our hands.”

Ultimately, each handshake is a new opportunity to show someone their position on you and your intentions. Bowden said the handshake is an ancient custom that was meant to show people that they were not hiding a knife or blade in their dominant hand. And the intention of no hostility still remains. Asking for and receiving a handshake is a way of saying, “We belong to the same community. We have the same traditions,” Bowden said.

The Harris-Trump meeting was the first debate handshake between a Republican and Democratic presidential candidate since 2016, so it’s interesting to watch Harris and Trump physically interact with each other.

On Wednesday, Harris and Trump attended the same ceremony commemorating the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. And they shook hands again, apparently at the suggestion of former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

This time, Trump tapped Harris’ hand on top of his own during the handshake, which is a sign of intimacy if you’re friends with someone. But since Harris and Trump aren’t friends, it’s seen as “arrogant.” “It’s also something women get a lot from men, and it’s a sexist move,” Dudley said.

Dudley said it would have been more powerful if Trump had shaken the hand himself rather than having a third party mediate the deal.

“In both instances, he missed an opportunity to look presidential, to look like a strong candidate, to look undaunted by her, and as time went on (during the debate), it certainly seemed like she was daunting him,” Dudley said.