Trump Did A ‘Tongue Thrust’ At Paxton’s Rally — And Experts Decode What It Means

“That guy’s gotta lose a lot of weight,” Trump said as one protester was being removed.

“He’s going back home to Mom now … but what he doesn’t know is his Mom voted for Trump,” he said about another. 

The president also spouted the unproven claim that the protesters were paid to heckle him. “These are paid protesters. They’re paid by enemies of our nation,” Trump said without any proof.

As he said these words and watched the protesters move around the audience, he displayed some telling body language and facial expressions. 

“One thing that we want to remember in this scene is that he’s in his element,” said Denise Dudley, a clinical psychologist and behavioral expert. “It’s not a bipartisan thing … he’s with his people. And so what he does, instead of just getting [the protesters] out of there, is that he uses it,” Dudley said.

He employs something called “audience-directed reframing,” added Dudley, “where what he’s doing is he’s turning the protester’s interruption into an opportunity to better define the event for his supporters.”

Trump creates an “in group/out group” moment, she said, which is what people use to distinguish the supportive crowd from the critics, or even the “good guys” from the “bad guys.”

Trump repeatedly comments about the motives and looks of his detractors.

“He’s describing the out group to the in group, which gets the in group more excited … they start chanting ‘USA,’ and so he’s using that very effectively, I have to say, to just say, ‘Hey, look at all of us, and look at that horrible group over there. They’re paid protesters,’” Dudley said.

“He just basically attacks them in order to, in a sense, bring his own group closer in. So it’s a tactic,” she added.

There were several instances throughout the rally where Trump motioned with his tongue, which is telling, said Patti Wood, a body language expert and author of “Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma.”

At one point, “he puts his tongue on the inside of his mouth and pushes out — and that’s a frustration movement.”

“He also, at one point in frustration, does what’s called a ‘tongue thrust,’ where he sticks his tongue out,” Wood said.

“It’s one of my favorite nonverbal behaviors to see in a powerful person, because it echoes playground behavior when there’s a bully on the playground and they’re taunting a child that doesn’t have the strength … to fight back, and so they stick their tongue out,” she said.

It’s a quick movement, but a “very instinctive” one at that, she noted.

“It’s a tell of his frustration, and he’s doing it before he attacks,” Wood said.

“I saw it quite frequently in perp walks … you don’t typically see that in a president in any scenario because they have the power,” Wood said, “so it tells me that at some level, he feels he doesn’t have the power, and that’s quite a reveal.”

“When you look to his face, you cannot not notice his lips,” said Abbie Maroño, a behavioral scientist.

Trump often uses a lot of mouth and lip movements when talking and interacting.

It’s very common for Trump to do “lip pursing when he gets irritated. So, his baseline often does show a lot of lip movement, but this was really exaggerated,” Maroño said.

Interestingly, it happened every time he tried to positively reframe one of the protester interruptions, she said.

“He would show very extreme lip pursing,” Maroño said. “Now, lip pursing is a behavior that we do to almost withhold information … it’s a restraint display and we do that when we’re trying to restrain, or we’re in displeasure, or we’re embarrassed and want to say something.”

Wood added that the lip pursing can mean many different things, but typically distaste. 

His jaw was also visibly tightened, Maroño noted. “You could see how tense and protruding … his jaw didn’t just tense; it repeatedly moved forward.”

This shows an “extreme level” of irritation and frustration that he is trying to hold back, Maroño said.

As some of the protesters are being removed from the space, Trump makes a point to stop talking and stare at them as they’re escorted out. This encourages everyone else to stop and stare, too.

Whether you are in the audience or watching the rally from your TV screen, “nothing is happening until those protesters get removed,” Dudley said.

“The way that he just stops and watches it — it forces us all to know that protesters are getting removed. We all know that, even if we can’t see it,” Dudley said. In a way, it makes an example of the protesters.

“Part of it, I think, is the most selfish move you could make,” Dudley said. People are at the rally to hear from Trump, but he stops the whole show to stare and wait, she added. 

It’s a way for him to stop the whole rally so everyone can watch the “naughty protesters” get removed from the room, she said. 

“I noticed there was a couple of times he would move his chin up, and we move our chin up when we have pride, and often when we’re trying to show confidence,” Maroño said.

That’s why folks remind themselves to keep their head up when trying to be confident, she noted.

“There are a couple of times he kept moving his head up, so he was trying to emanate confidence,” she said. Along with his buried frustration, though, this created an aura of “confrontational confidence,” Maroño added.

“He wasn’t calm and collected. He was poised, but irritated,” she said.

With more than 12 protester interruptions throughout the evening, it’s no wonder Trump was frustrated — even though he didn’t want to show the protesters that they got to him.

“It’s getting really close to the elections now, and it’s like when a battle has been really, really long, and you’ve got so much oomph and drive and fire, and then it gets towards the end, and it’s almost like that last run when you’re so close [it] becomes so exhausting,” Maroño said.

“I’m starting to see that a little bit more in his very recent appearances where he’s starting to appear a little frustrated,” she added.

Wood agreed, and noted that after Trump makes the “these are paid protesters” comment, his eyes do a “shudder” and his mouth goes into a downward curve.

“And what that tells me is … he’s exhausted,” Wood said. “The delivery wasn’t powerful, and then afterwards he’s exhausted by the thought that they’re even there,” Wood added.

Trump’s fans also booed the protesters, which Wood said she thinks confused Trump.

“At one point, I thought, is he thinking, ‘Are these boos for me?’ Like he gets at football games,” Wood said. Trump was booed at a Washington Commanders game last year.

“I think it shows that these negative statements from people affected him,” Wood said.

The pauses before responding or acknowledging what was happening also show he had to figure out what he actually wanted to do or say, Wood added.

His instinct is to attack immediately, ignore or cut someone off mid-sentence, and “he didn’t do that.”

“He wasn’t his normal self in terms of going immediately to attack,” Wood said.