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Subtle gesture missing from Trump speech reveals his distress

A body language expert has revealed the one common behaviour missing from President Donald Trump’s press conference as the tight US election race continues.

On Thursday night (local time) Trump again falsely accused the Democrats of trying to “steal” the election and made baseless claims about “fake polls” and “corrupt mail-in votes”.

Founder of My Alcomy, Sophie Zadeh, told Yahoo News Australia his nonverbal behaviour during the briefing was out of character as he made less eye contact and read from notes on a podium.

“Initially, his hands grip the podium tensely as his body sways slightly from side to side, a pacifying movement to bring comfort to his distress,” she said.

A red circle is around Donald Trump's hand to indicate he is not using his common hand gestures.
Donald Trump's usual hand gestures were missing from Thursday night's press conference. Source: ABC

She added his usual, elaborate hand gestures were also absent as he spoke with less power in his voice.

“This isn’t something we usually see,” she said.

Ms Zadeh added as Trump perked up and became more positive and confident, his body rose momentarily three times – a gravity-defying behaviour that punctuated his words.

“Trump rises onto his toes as he says, ‘as everybody saw we won by historic numbers’, and, ‘they [the pollsters] got it knowingly wrong,” she said.

Ms Zadeh also pinpointed an action that suggested Trump felt delight as he spoke about securing critical states including Florida, Iowa, Indiana and Ohio.

“There’s another clue into Trump’s thoughts with a sudden momentary head tilt to his left occurring three times,” she said.

“This indicates his delight at certain points in his speech, as he says, ‘I’ve already decisively won’, ‘massive victories’ and ‘Ohio’.”

Trump lashes out at ‘illegal votes’

US President Donald Trump has made sensational baseless claims in a speech to the American people as the world eagerly awaits the outcome of the 2020 US election.

Trump said he has “easily won” as he hit out at alleged fraud at the polls.

“If you count the legal votes, I easily win. If you count the illegal votes, they can try to steal the election from us,” he said.

“If you count the votes that came in late, we’re looking into them very strongly. A lot of them have come in late. I already decisively won critical states including Florida, Iowa, Indiana, Ohio.

“It is despite interference from big money, big tech. We won by historic numbers and the pollsters got it knowingly wrong.”

Some have claimed Trump was “lying” about the voting process in his speech while a number of major US networks cut away from him, including MSNBC, ABC and CBS.

“Here we are again in the unusual position of not only interrupting the President of the United States but correcting the President of the United States," MSNBC host Brian Williams lamented.

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