Harris lacked confidence, presidential demeanor in first TV interview: body language expert

A body language expert who analyzed Vice President Kamala Harris’ first interview with the media since becoming the Democratic presidential nominee tells Fox News Digital that she believes Harris was ‘not confident in what she’s saying’ and lacked a presidential demeanor. 

The vice president sat down alongside running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday night for a CNN interview after largely avoiding the press since ascending to the top of the Democratic ticket, yet she appeared to frequently look down while responding to questions.

‘When I look at her overall demeanor, she does not carry the confidence or the presidential appearance in her demeanor to command in her position,’ body language expert Susan Constantine told Fox News Digital. ‘So for everything that I saw last night, she definitely needs to make some tweaks into her body language to appear more confident.’ 

‘The fact that she’s looking down a lot removes a lot of the fluidity and the authenticity,’ she added. 

Near the beginning of the interview, Harris was asked twice about her ‘day one’ agenda but gave overarching answers instead of responding with a specific executive order or directive.  

‘When she struggles, you start to see a lot of the head bobbling. You know, the head bobbling is ‘what part of the file in my subconscious am I going to pull out? Which ones are my answers?’’ Constantine said about Harris. ‘She couldn’t come up with a crystal clear answer, and that’s why she tends to bobble.’

‘When you bobble and waffle like that,’ she continued, ‘that’s another signal that she’s not really… prepared. She doesn’t really have confidence in her own answers.’ 

‘When you’re breaking gaze, that is a form of deflection,’ Constantine also said. ‘So when you’re removing an eye gaze, not making good eye contact, it’s just showing me that she’s not confident in what she’s saying.’ 

Harris sat next to Walz during the interview in Savannah, Georgia, and Constantine said Harris was ‘consistently looking for acknowledgment’ during the event. 

‘She is looking for that signal from Walz to see if he’s on board. Many times when we see him, he’s got the pressed lips — that tends to be a more serious, more collected, expression in his mouth,’ she said. 

The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital about Harris’ performance in the interview. 

‘Overall, you know, as one woman to another, I would say if you’re going to be a woman in power, you have to look like a woman in power,’ Constantine said. ‘And she doesn’t at this time.’ 

Fox News’ Emmett Jones, Emma Colton and Matteo Cina contributed to this report.