Transcription
Some people say you are actually a Mossad agent sitting in front of me and you were Charlie's handler. They say that the ring is on your fingers, which are my kids, >> your kids initials, my wedding band. >>
What's going on everyone? Welcome to the behavioral arts. My name is Spidey, and I use my degree in sociology and psychology, my certifications in criminal interrogation and body language analysis, and my experience as an award-winning mentalist to teach people behavioral analysis and practical psychology on stage and television shows all over the world.
Last week, Erica Kirk, the widow of Charlie Kirk and current CEO of Turning Point USA, sat down with CBS for an interview that quickly sparked intense reactions online. Several clips from that conversation went viral due to her non-verbal reactions. But when you watch the full interview, the most revealing behaviors aren't always in those viral clips.
In this video, we're going to break down those moments, the subtle behavioral tells, some of which went unnoticed, and what they may reveal about what Erica is really thinking and feeling. What do her body language, facial expressions, and word choice actually reveal? Let's dive right in.
>> They kind of justified it. They basically said that because Charlie said or believed things that they believed were controversial or even hateful that he somehow had it coming. What do you say to people who justified his death? You're sick. He's a human being. You think he deserve that? Tell that to my three-year-old daughter. Excuse me. You want to watch and high res the video of my husband being laugh and say he deserves it. >>
Okay, so quite a lot going on there and a rapid succession of behavioral tells including numerous universal emotions. So, from the top, as the interviewer is asking the question, we see something from Erica that we're going to see a lot throughout this interview in two different contexts. Exactly. When Barry is saying, they basically said that because Charlie said or believed things, we see Erica looking at her and she squints her eyes like this. And you see it very obviously on the bottom eyelids.
Now, this is a gesture that we see very often in day-to-day interactions in an exchange of information. So either I'm imparting wisdom on someone and explaining something or someone's explaining something to me and I squint as I listen to them. The likely reason for this is because when we try to see something more clearly we squint the eyes. So subconsciously we also do it when we're trying to understand something clearly or explain something clearly. Which is why we often see it when someone says does that make sense? We see that squint accompany that sentence.
Now in Erica's case it gets interesting because she definitely uses it when she's giving advice or imparting wisdom on someone who asked a question. We saw this again and again throughout this interview when she was giving someone advice. She often squinted like this in that kind of non-verbal way of saying, "Is that clear? Does that make sense?" However, with Erica, we also often see it in moments of skepticism or irritation. And we saw it right here, but we're going to see it elsewhere in the interview as well. In fact, as we look at the other clips, look for it yourself. You're going to spot it. when she's skeptical of a question or a little irritated by it or starting to feel that negativity, we see that squint come in like this, almost like she's trying to judge what's going on and how to handle it.
After the question is asked, we see Erica quickly look up like this, which is very consistent for her at the beginning of answers. As she's thinking about how she's going to answer this or looking for her words, those eyes often go up. Here, it's very quick. And then she instantly says, "You're sick." And immediately after those words, we see the first universal emotion make an appearance.
The universal emotions are emotions that the research has shown look the same everywhere in the world. And they've been observed in tribal communities that are very detached from Western civilization and on the faces of individuals who were born blind, which means that they're not learned gestures. They are innate to all humans. One of those emotions is anger. It has a very high recognizability rate everywhere in the world. And you could probably guess some of the things that go into the universal expression of anger like the furrowed eyebrows like this and the tension in the jaw like this. But these things can also happen in concentration. Right? When I'm concentrating, you might see tension around the lips and the jaw and my eyebrows might come down.
Two other subtle tells that you could spot on someone when they're feeling anger, even when they're trying to conceal it, is one, flared nostrils. When those nostrils open up, and two, when that upper eyelid goes up like this. Notice how when I open the upper eyelids and flare the nostrils, you see more of that glare, more of that rage.
So with Erica Kirk, immediately after she says, "You're sick." As she's saying, "He's a human being." We see that squint again, which is the squint of irritation and skepticism. Very consistent for her. Even as her head kicks back a little. So it's kind of like this, "What's wrong with you?" And then immediately after she says that, we see those eyes open up. Very consistent with anger. Then she says, "You think you deserve that?" And she backs up significantly more this time. We really see her kicking back. And she squints significantly more than she was before. And if you pay very close attention to the nose over here on the sides, we see a bit of a crinkling as she goes, "You think you deserve that?" And this is the micro expression of disgust.
Another universal emotion. So disgust is actually one of the easiest ones to remember. We even see it in babies. And it could be summed up in one thing. The mind wants less intel. So something is gross. We don't want to see it. We don't want to smell it. We don't want to look at it. So everything on the face and the body puts distance between that and us. The reason we crinkle the nose is because I don't want to smell that. We often close the mouth like this like I don't want to taste that. We close the eyes. I don't want to look at that. And we often see this backing away. Very very common with disgust. So when you think of disgust, think of that.
So we've gone through a lot. We started with this irritation, skepticism that turned into anger. Then we saw a very quick disgust and now as she's saying tell that to my three-year-old daughter again as she's saying it we see anger because we see those eyes open up and this time the chin comes up with this chin jut like this or this chin thrust which is very consistent with confrontation and anger. So very often before a fight breaks out you might see people talking to each other like this but even without that big obvious tell sometimes you see like a bit of a chin jut like this. We're going to see it with her numerous times in moments of anger or subconscious confrontation.
And instantly after she says, "Tell that to my three-year-old daughter." With that eyes, with that chin, we see the third universal expression of emotion make an appearance, which is sadness. So, we see a few things. First, we see a hard swallow, which often goes into sadness, but is not part of the universal expression. Then, we see the eyebrows. So with sadness, what happens is the inner corners of the eyebrows get pulled together and up. And if you look at her, you can literally see the inside of the eyebrow doing like this little boop dip like this. And if you look at the muscle up here, which is called the gabella, we're seeing a dip in the line up there. And we're seeing some tension down here in the chin, which is called chin bossing. All of these things are consistent with the expression of sadness.
You'll also notice tears start to run down her face. And believe it or not, tears are not part of the universal expression of sadness. The reason for that is because not everyone who's sad will always cry. It'll happen very often. But if we look for tears as the main thing, we might miss other more reliable things like chin bossing, gabella, and the eyebrows coming together like this. And an overall droopiness on the face is also very common. The interesting thing about those inner corners of the eyebrows coming together and up is that it's very difficult to fake. Very few people can fake this. Some actors can do it and every time I say it in the video, people try it at home. So, I know some of you are trying right now. And a lot of people even come to me and go, "Look, I could do it." And they really, really can't. But what it is is basically it's that inner corner just alone coming up like this while the outer corners don't. So, it's not this. It's like sort of like this. And then you see that squiggle on the gloella here as well.
Now, some commenters online have said that despite being sad with tears on her face, something about this moment felt performative to them. The way she said, "Excuse me," and the way she keeps looking up and the sniffles and the way she started really adding to it towards the end felt to them for some reason performative. And we're going to go into great detail about the way Erica Kirk communicates and why certain people feel this way, but I want to wait for another answer to talk about all that because it's just a really great example of the way she communicates. So, more on this in just a bit.
But I do want to say one last thing about the clip that we just saw cuz I know that some of the regular viewers might have a question about something they may have noticed. And it's while Barry's asking the question, we very quickly see on the left side of Erica's mouth this quick upwards twitch like this. And some people might look at that and go, "Well, was that the micro expression of contempt?" Cuz contempt could very quickly happen on one side of the mouth like this. But if you pay attention to that moment, you'll notice that the other corner of the mouth is also going up very subtly and both eyes are squinting. It almost looks like a small smirk because we're seeing both sides of the face move. But more importantly, we don't have that scrunching that we see with contempt. Even when it's fast, there's this there's this tension where we see that scrunch. So, is it possible that it's this quick fleeting moment of contempt? It's possible, but it doesn't typically look or feel like that.
>> Erica, as you know, the last person that Charlie ever spoke to was a Utah Valley student named Hunter Kak, and he's here tonight, and he wants to ask you a question. >>
Hi there. Um, Erica, I want to tell you how much I appreciate your calls for peace and unity. And I'm likewise horrified by the people in my so-called camp who were cheering about Charlie's murder. But even worse is when powerful, influential people on either side of the aisle stoke the flames. When they do it, the flames can become an inferno. And this leads me to Donald Trump, the most powerful and influential person on earth, who has more responsibility than anyone else to put the flames out. Just last month, President Trump called on six Democratic lawmakers to be tried for sedition, which he clarified was punishable by death. He then reposted a simple message. Hang them. I think that you've been making strides to bring peace to our country and that Turning Point has been asking Democrats to decry the individuals who cheer for violence. I have and will continue to decry them. But any goodfaith effort to stop political violence must hold both parties to the same standard and expectation. So in that spirit, will you condemn the violent rhetoric of Donald Trump, the most powerful and influential person on earth?
>> I appreciate your question. You know my heart. Why would I ever say yes, go people? This is so much deeper than just one. I understand your sentiment. I do. But this is also so much deeper than just one person. This starts at the home. Okay? This starts with family. This starts with a seed that grows and grows. You can choose to have evil in your heart or you can choose to have light. No, I I will never agree with political violence. My husband is a victim of it. I'm a victim of it. But what I'm trying to say here is that we can blame everyone else. We have to look in the mirror. When you become a father, when you become a mother, how are you raising your kids? Are you taking responsibility or are you giving them a device and saying, "Go down that rabbit hole. I'm trying to go to Pilates class." >>
Okay, so there's a lot going on here. Starting with the guy asking the question, Hunter, and he's doing two things in his question that are actually researched with great results and that are studied in sales, marketing, psychology, persuasion. The first principle in the research is called labeling or attribution. They mean more or less the same thing. And it's the idea that in a conversation, if you use a positive adjective to describe someone, they are much more likely to behave consistently with that positive behavior. For example, there was a study done in a school that found that when the principal described a classroom of students as neat and tidy to them, as a result, they behaved in more neat and tidy ways, cleaning up after themselves much more. Similarly, studies have found that when people are described as generous before a donation is requested, it increases the rate and the amount of donations. The reason for this is very simple. When somebody describes us using a positive adjective like generous or neat, we want to act consistently with that because we don't want anybody to say, "Oh, no, turns out he's not that generous or not that neat." We want to act consistently with that attribution or that label.
Now, the interesting thing about labeling and attribution is that it doesn't have to be false. Like, for example, the classroom could already be more or less neat or tidy, or the person you're talking to could be generous, but by using that adjective and saying it, it further encourages that behavior, thus either increasing it dramatically or even just a little bit if the person was already generous or neat or tidy. And in this case, that's exactly what Hunter did. He started his question by saying,"I want to tell you how much I appreciate your calls for peace and unity." So it might very well be true that he does appreciate that. But by actually voicing it, by saying it, he's giving her that label, that attribution of someone who's outspoken in the name of peace and unity. So now, as he goes on to ask his question, he's hoping that she will remain consistent with that side of her, that part of her.
The second psychological principle that he uses is highly researched and I'll leave a bunch of studies in the description if you want to learn more about it. But it's called reciprocity and it's the basic idea that when someone does something for us, no matter how small, we typically have this need to reciprocate, to do the same in return because subconsciously we don't like to feel indebted to people. The reason this is very common to almost all humans, not all, but almost, is because in tribal times when we're part of smaller civilizations, if somebody only took from the tribe and never gave anything back, they were likely to be outcast and that would affect their survivability. And so we have this kind of need to balance things out. This is why in marketing or sales, a lot of stores will give away free samples or free trials. This is the law of reciprocity, which is highly researched and quite effective.
So, in this case, Hunter says, "I am horrified by people in my so-called camp who are cheering for what happened to Charlie." And then he goes on to say that he will condemn anyone, whether it's on his side or not his side, that advocates for violence before asking, "Will you condemn the violent rhetoric of Donald Trump?" So, this is reciprocity. It's I will condemn people even if they're on my side. Will you do the same?
Now, notice some of her behaviors as this question is being asked. The moment he says the name Donald Trump, when he brings that up, we see a few things from her. First, we see that squint of hers, which happens again very consistently with skepticism and a bit of irritation. So, I think the moment he brings that up, she goes, "Oh, I see where this is going, you little sneaky guy, you." So, it's that kind of skepticism there. We also see a big breath in that moment to the point where we see her shoulders going up. So, this is not just a deep breath. It's up in the chest where we typically breathe when we're a little more stressed or anxious. Then we see her chin go up like this, which again very consistent with confrontation we often see with these little kind of jolts like this. But hers goes up slowly like this and then immediately goes down like this back in that trying to size him up and a little bit of neck guarding there. So a bit of defensiveness. So the chin goes from here to there and she keeps looking at him keeps trying to figure out what are we doing with this question.
What is very clear is when he says will you condemn the violent rhetoric of Donald Trump? We see a smile on her face, but it is the furthest thing from an actual smile of joy. So, we're talking about universal emotions before. Joy is one of them. And yes, the corners of the mouth go up like this, not sideways up. And we see the cheeks bubble up like this. And the eyes squint a little bit. So, you sit on the whole face here. The corners are not going up. They're going more to the side like this. It's a very flat smile. If you block the mouth and look at the eyes, it doesn't look like a smile. And even if you block the eyes and just look at the mouth, that doesn't look like much of a smile either. So it's a very flat smile. And as soon as he's done speaking, we get this. So it's confirmation of like, okay, so this is what we're doing here. And we see a chin jut and it's very fast this one. It's a quick chin jut as she says, I appreciate your question, but in a very flat tone. There's no warmth. There's no actual appreciation of the question. It's very flat. So this entire thing together is, "Okay, I see where you went with that." And all right, so this is what we're doing. It's quite confrontational.
>> I appreciate your question. >>
Now, she starts her answer to the question. So, you'll notice she looks up again like this, but earlier it was very quick because she knew what she wanted to say. Here, she needs an extra second to kind of think about how she's going to navigate this. And she starts by saying, "You know my heart." So, reaffirming like, "You said, you know, the things I stand for." So, he's putting it back on him. You know my heart. Why would I ever say yes, go murder people? And this is a really interesting thing because on the channel we often talk about non-answer statements which is in interrogations or interview rooms when a question is asked we ask ourselves did the response answer my question and did it answer my entire question? That's a very important thing. Is the person actually addressing what's being asked? And in this case, it's like it it almost it's like it's dipping its toes in, but it's not quite going to a full answer of the question because the question was, will you condemn a person, not an act, right? Will you condemn the violent rhetoric of Donald Trump specifically? So, she's saying, why would I ever say yes, let's go murder people? And then she goes on to say that she is not for violence. So she's kind of saying that she condemns those actions, but not specifically that she condemns the rhetoric of an individual. She kind of doesn't quite go into that.
Then she does this little loop-loop thing where she kind of goes away from the question, then back towards it, then away from it again. So she says, "This starts at the home." Okay? So she's saying it's not about one individual. This starts at the home. Okay? And as she's saying that, notice that squint. I'm sure some of you caught it. That's the squint of giving you information, imparting wisdom. And this is very common. We often see this with people when they're saying something and they go, "Does that make sense?" You know, is this is this registering? Is it clear? And that's exactly what it looks like. So then she's kind of moving away from the question talking about family and what's inside you and kind of deviating a little. But then she circles back and says, "No, I will never agree with political violence." Which is interesting because the question was, "Will you condemn a specific person?" So, no, I will never agree with political violence is in the same family, but it doesn't directly answer that specific question.
And then immediately after that, we see what looks like a mouth shrug, but it's actually just the lips going down like this, like a tension with the corners of the mouth being downturned. Now, it's funny because we recently on the channel talked about this exact gesture, this kind of downturn thing like this. And I went into great details about the evolution of that gesture in an analysis of Sydney Sweeney. I will leave a link in the description if you want to take a deep dive on this gesture. But essentially, it's very similar to a lip compression or a mouth shrug and very consistent with anytime someone's thinking. That's all I have to say about that. I don't have anything more to say about that. So, think about how let's say you and I come back from a movie and someone asks, "How was the movie?" And you go, "It was great." And I go like this, like, "Yeah, I agree it was great. I don't have much more to add to that." Or similarly, maybe it wasn't great. And you go, "It wasn't the best movie." and I go like this like yeah I don't I don't have anything good to say about it kind of agree with that sentiment. So it's basically I don't have anything to say and in this case that's what it is. I will never agree with political violence. That's it. I I have nothing else to say about that.
And notice what happens immediately after that. So as she says I will never agree with political violence. That's all there is to say there. My husband was a victim of it. I was a victim of it. If you look at Hunter it was happening before but we really see it clearly now. His eyebrows have gone into that sadness place, that universal expression of sadness, which again I wish I could fake, but I can't. It looks like this. And he's listening to her and he's and he's agreeing. He's nodding along. So I think in this moment he's feeling that sadness. You know, he was there when it happened. So maybe a part of him is reliving it. He feels sorry for what she lost. So he's in that moment of sadness and he's listening and he's agreeing.
But the moment she goes back to talking about family, she says, "We could blame everyone else. You have to look in the mirror when you become a father, when you become a mother, and she goes into this whole thing about parenting. The moment she starts that, right in the beginning, as soon as she says, "We could blame everyone else," you see his sadness kind of dip. So, both eyebrows just kind of in that sadness go boom down like this. As he kind of looks away for a second like this, and I think he's trying to process cuz he's confused by why she's going back to this whole we could blame everyone else and she's going to this whole family thing. And if you look at him, the agreement stops. there's no more agreement because I think he understands at this point that we're moving away from the question and he's not going to get his answer to does she condemn the specific person that he asked about.
>> A 22-year-old man named Tyler Robinson has been arrested and charged with the of your husband and yet there are a huge number of conspiracy theories, you might call them brain rot, that are spreading right now online about the actual story behind the reality. One, people say that Tyler Robinson was actually a MAGA Republican. Or two, some people say you were actually a Mossad agent sitting in front of me and you were Charlie's handler and Israel killed Charlie, >> right? >> Other people say that a number of men in the crowd were wearing maroon t-shirts. And this signifies that his killing was an elite airborne operation, whatever that means. They say that the rings on your fingers, which are >> my kids initial, >> your kids initials, my wedding band, the Medal of Freedom, my my engagement ring, >> but apparently they symbolize some kind of secret plot. There's also a new theory that Egyptian aircraft have been tracking you. >> Mhm. >> What is going on? Why are there so many conspiracies spreading about what seems to be a pretty openshot case?
This is the first time that we have seen evil on display where we have social media at our fingertips. Something so evil that happened. People are wanting answers immediately. They are wanting to figure out how to wrap their mind around this. >> Egyptian planes. >> Do let's just slip. >> No, but yeah. Egyptian planes. >> Do you believe that Tyler Robinson murdered your husband?
>> Yes, I do. Why do you think it is so hard for so many people to believe that reality? Because it's too simple. Again, everyone always has to think there's more to the story. Well, sometimes there's not. I've seen the autopsy report. I've seen our case pulled together. I've been in constant contact with our lawyers, our our the pro the prosecuting team. I've seen it all. And let me tell you this. Why in the world why should we prior to the trial lay all of our hands and cards on the table for the defense team to see to somehow then I don't even know what they would do with it. But what I what I will say and I want to get on the Egyptian plane thing, take a flight on that for a second. I was pregnant for 90% of those trips. Mind you, I've never All those places they said I've traveled, I've never been. I mean, I've been, but I'm not within those dates that they've >> But you even said you need to address. >> No, but this is Yeah, but I do. I do on that one. Only because only because from a humor standpoint humor standpoint. I intentionally when I was pregnant hid not because I was embarrassed, not because I didn't want anyone. Yes, we did keep it very private, but it's because it was a moment very sacred. I was growing a human inside of me, my baby. The world that Charlie and I live in is very toxic at times. >> Yeah. >> And when you are growing a beautiful child in you, I don't want to be around it. >> I want to enjoy eating my In-N-Out Burger and my hot fudge sundae. That's what I want to do. I'm pregnant and I have nine months to own it. You really think I'm going to be on an Egyptian plane while I am wanting to be with my In-N-Out Burger and my chocolate milkshake? No, I'm not. So, if you want to go through my flight log, go right ahead. It's very boring. You say I was here on this date. I have a photo in my phone to prove that I actually was in the hospital uh because I was having contractions. So, game on the >>
Okay, so much going on here. Starting with Barry, the interviewer. And in the beginning of this interview, as she introduced this town hall on CBS show, she talked about how it's about hearing from both sides and not taking a side. But in many questions, including this one, she is very clearly taking a side. And granted, an interview and interrogation, pretty much any top level interrogator will tell you it's good to take the side of the person you're interviewing because it kind of opens them up a little bit more and doesn't feel like a confrontation. But typically, it's a little bit more along the lines of being empathetic without really aggressively taking their side. So, it' be more along the lines of, you know, I can imagine how some of these theories online have affected you. I know they would affect me. So, you know, why don't you walk us through how that feels? But in this case, Barry has like this anger and she goes these conspiracy theories, you might call them brain rot, and she's like really on her side attacking this. And that can also have a negative effect where this confidence in the interviewer of how idiotic all this is, can give the interviewe, in this case Erica, some confidence, and they're kind of in on it together, mocking the conspiracy theorists. And that's kind of what happens here as Barry is listing the different conspiracy theories out there about this case. We see a lot on Erica's face. We see some eye rolling. We see a lot of this kind of smirking as she looks away and kind of nods along like, "Oh yeah, sure." We see these no gestures like this of like, "Oh, that's a silly one." Like, "Oh my god, I can't believe that one." And it all stops.
However, she chimes in when it comes to the rings and she has a lot of passion when she answers that one and she holds the rings up like this and she starts explaining what they are. my children's initials and you know my engagement ring and she kind of goes to what they all are very passionately very confidently and she holds them up like this like I've got nothing to hide take a good long look so behaviorally that's a good level of confidence she's confronting it head-on she's explaining them but without getting nervous about it too much like oh yeah why would my ring you know and getting all nervous and trying to overexlain it just a basic explanation of each one and then displaying it like there's nothing to see here so good confidence there she does behaviorally actually believe that the conspiracy theory about the rings, whatever that is, is ridiculous.
Then Barry finishes the question and Erica begins to respond and the first thing we see is a lip lick, which has not been baseline so far. We've seen a few throughout, but it hasn't been a consistent thing with her. And licking the lips does indicate stress. When we're stressed, the mouth dries out. Licking the lips corrects that. It's also a grooming gesture, which is any gesture we make to improve our appearance. Licking the lips brings more color to them, and it's often something we see before somebody answers a question. with her. It happens sometimes, not all the time, but we see a clear one here. But besides that, we don't see a whole lot of other things that very much deviate from baseline. We're not seeing her avoiding, closing in. We're not seeing her stumble on her words. In fact, she's speaking quite confidently. So, that lip lick could be a little bit of stressor on the topic cuz, you know, it's this topic that's like a wildfire spreading out there. Or it could be her getting ready to actually passionately answer this. Remember, one gesture alone doesn't mean much. We need those clusters to raise our confidence.
Then she goes on to talk about the question how people want immediate answers. Then she stops herself as she looks up and says Egyptian planes and kind of laughs at the idea and we even see an eye block. Now the research on eye blocking shows that it happens when we're either trying to keep a thought in or keep a thought out. And it very often happens like with irritation or when somebody does something go like it's so unbelievable. And in this case, it kind of looks like it might be that because as the interviewer tries to ask a question, she brings her hand up like this, like, "No, no, hold on. We're going to talk about this Egyptian planes thing." That's what that really feels like. And that's further proven by the fact that she does circle back to the Egyptian plane. So, I really think she has some thoughts on this. She's irritated by it. And she's like, "No, no, wait. We're going to talk about this thing."
Now, as Erica is in this Egyptians plain moment, Barry does something that in timing is really good, but in the word choice could be a little bit better in my opinion because in interrogation or interview, every now and then when someone's stuck in a certain thought, the interviewer will jump in with a very direct question about the important thing just to see how the person's going to handle it when it comes out of left field. Will they confidently respond to it right away or will it trip them up? So, in terms of timing, it was good because Erica's in this Egyptians plane moment and she comes in with, "Do you think Tyler Robinson did this?" Like, really quickly, let's see if this is going to trip her up or if she can immediately answer it without hesitation. The reason I say the word choice isn't my favorite personally is because it's a closed-ended question. It's a yes or no question. Do you believe Tyler Robinson did this? So, she either has to give a yes or a no. And that's easier to do in my experience than an open-ended question. So, I would have interrupted with Erica, let's cut to the chase here. What do you think happened? Who do you think did this? And I want her to formulate a longer answer to see if it's going to trip her up. Is she going to fall apart or confidently tell me I believe exactly what's being said in the media? Tyler Robinson is the one who did this. But that's just a question of personal preference. That's the way I would have asked it. Regardless, Barry asked it this way, and it's still a fine question to try to see if it'll trip her up.
And she gives a very confident, "Yes, I do." and looks right at Barry. And we see a couple of things here. First, we see again that open eye that's very consistent with anger. And she's staring at Barry. And her blink rate is very low. We're not seeing too many blinks. Just just stare at Barry while she continues the question. Now, let's talk about eye contact. There's a very big myth out there that liars avoid eye contact. But the biggest research on the subject has found that there isn't a pattern. Some liars increase eye contact, some liars decrease eye contact. But in that specific study, which was huge, by the way, more people increased eye contact during the deception. Not all, not enough to say that liars increase eye contact. We always want to look for a deviation from the person's baseline. Whatever they normally do, are they deviating from that? In this case, with this stare like this, it could be that Erica is looking to see, okay, does she buy my answer? But it's not that far from baseline. We've seen her stare at people a lot before. She stared at Hunter while he was asking a question for a very long time. She stared at Barry numerous times in this interview. That eye-opening thing is not that far off from baseline. So, there really isn't something here for me to look at and go, "Oh my god, look, this is completely making her fall apart." We've seen a lot of examples on the channel, even just recently, of people who were likely stressed or being deceptive about an answer where we saw their entire behavior fall apart completely. That's not happening here.
Now, granted, it's a very direct, you know, close-ended question. Yes, I do. And then she looks at her. It's not a lot to go on, but in what we're seeing, there's a good amount of confidence in Erica's response. So, what does that mean? Does that mean that I'm telling you that Tyler Robinson 100% did this? Of course not. I don't know that. Erica doesn't know that. Barry doesn't know that. However, in the way that she's answering this, behaviorally, it is likely that Erica believes that Tyler Robinson did this. Could it be a lie? Sure. But if it is, behaviorally, it's presented very directly and very confidently. In other words, if it eventually comes out that she knew it wasn't Tyler Robinson, it was someone else, I would still stand by that and tell you she presented it in a way that is very consistent with actual confidence and belief. I say this a lot, but I don't want my channel to be one of the reasons that we spread misinformation about body language. Body language cannot tell you when someone's being deceptive because there isn't something that we all do when we're being deceptive. the same way we all show anger the same way or sadness the same way more or less. There's nothing like that for deception. So, we have to look at clusters that deviate from baseline that allow us to know, okay, there's something here worth looking into. The person is acting a lot more stressed than normal. Let's find out why. And even then, it's not certainly deception, it's more likely deception. So, that's all we have to base ourselves on. And in this case, confidence is high, direct answer. It's not tripping her up, and we're not seeing these big clusters that deviate from her baseline. That's all.
And then a really interesting thing happens when she says, "Why would we put all this out there for the defense team to I don't even know what they would do with it." So, I feel like what's happening in this moment is whether she read something online or somebody said something and it was explained what a defense team could do with this information if you put all this public information out there, but she doesn't quite remember what the words were or what specifically they can do. So, she's trying to make that point confidently and then she trips up on the information. But, it's interesting how the cadence is still pretty confident and it doesn't really make her completely fall apart and see it as this big incriminating thing. Instead, we see this eye block. So, I think she knows that, okay, we got to move away from this because I don't really know how to drive that point home. So, I think she's closing her eyes to try to focus on where we could go from here. But, I will say this, and she immediately goes back to the Egyptian airplanes, and that's very important >> for the defense team to see to somehow then I don't even know what they would do with it. But what I what I will say, and I want to get on the Egyptian plane thing, take a flight on that for a second. The reason I say this is the following. Typically, our mind overcompensates. So, in moments of low confidence where okay, I don't really know this or I don't know how to drive this point home, our mind immediately goes to something that is high confidence to balance that out, right? And this is something we see in speeches, in negotiations, it's a very common pattern. So, in this case, the fact that she kind of tripped up on this what the defense would do and knows that, okay, we like who what was that? Wait, what is the defense going to do? You never finished that thought. The fact that in that moment of uncertainty, she goes immediately to the Egyptian airplanes indicates that it's likely that her confidence on that subject is pretty darn high. The brain is compensating something low confidence with something high confidence. And she goes into this whole pretty confident segment where she's even a little condescending towards the people who believe in this Egyptian planes thing. And even when Barry tries to interrupt her and saying, "You don't have to explain this." She goes, "No, no, I do want to address this one." and she goes into this whole thing of how that's impossible because this this this this.
Now, there's something we do know through research about deception and it's that often, not always at all, but often deception feels a little bit more like a sales pitch than the truth. The truth is just facts and deception is often a little more sales pitchy. So, when someone's really trying to convince you of something, it often aligns a little bit more with deception. It's something you could throw into a cluster, for example. This is why we say trutht tellers tell, liars sell or truth tellers convey, liars convince. So the way to look at this is the following. Given what the subject matter is that she's shutting down conspiracy theories, obviously there's going to be a bit of an element of sales pitch to this. So we could look at that and kind of question a little bit, but notice how there isn't this overwhelming attempt to convince anyone. She's kind of looking down on it and just laying down the facts of like here's the reason that doesn't make any sense and it's important to her. But most importantly, she went from a place of low confidence to this topic. She could have walked away from this subject, but she chose to bring the Egyptian planes back up twice, even when the interviewer was like, "You don't need to entertain these conspiracy theories." She chose to bring it up and talk about it, which at the very least indicates to me that she believes she could shut this specific one down. quite confidently >>
the podcaster Candace Owens, okay, at one time a friend of Charlie's, at one time an employee of Turning Point, she has been one of the main peddlers of these conspiracies and she is making a huge amount of money on it. She is building her business off of these lies. What do you want to say to her and the other people that are putting these lies out into the world right now?
>> Stop. That's it. That's all I have to say. Stop. >>
Okay, that is probably the clip from this whole interview that went the most viral and it was covered on all kinds of news platforms. And I played a different version of it because I wanted you guys to see her reaction. And in the actual recorded version, it was on Barry for a long time. And there's a massive moment here of body language that was sent to me specifically with people pointing this out, which is when Barry says Candace Owens. The moment she says it, we see Erica's smile go away as she just stares at Barry with this glare. And for a while, she's quite still. Then, as Barry says, "Pedallers of conspiracies," we see Erica's chin go up like this, which once again, research has shown happens very often in confrontation or even pre-confrontation. And with Erica, we have seen it numerous times in this kind of slow way like this when she's feeling a conflict with a question that's being asked. So we see it here and then the chin goes down like this as she keeps looking at the person. And the funny thing is she did exactly the same thing earlier with a question asked by Hunter Kak when he was asking something that she wasn't very happy with the subject matter. We saw this exact same thing when the subject approached. So it's confrontation and then a little bit of defensiveness. We're protecting the neck now while keeping our eyes on the source of the conflict.
And then her answer stop. Just stop. Plain and simple. That's all she's got to say. But I really want to take a second to talk about this kind of smile that goes away and this big obvious glare that she has and why so many people notice that how everyone suddenly became a body language analyst. There's a small but very important distinction in this moment of body language that's really important to talk about and it's the fact that the reason a lot of people caught this moment is because she wanted you to catch this moment. This is not a small or subtle tell that's giving her away subconsciously. This is not something that she's doing without knowing about it. This is not something that whether I'm on stage reading people for entertainment or in an interview room that I'm looking for that's going to give me clues as to what the person is thinking. This is an obvious communication. She wants you to know that she's not happy about Candace Owens. And this plays into a way that a lot of people feel when it comes to Erica Kirk that I would like to talk about right now. So, a lot of people have expressed and understandably so that in the way that Erica communicates, there's a lot of theatrics. It feels very performative. And this has been consistent throughout many of her speeches and interviews. And the reason a lot of people feel this way is because of Erica's specific method of communicating.
And we can look at her past in pageantry, or we can look at her past experience with sermons, and we can look at a bunch of different things. But the end result is the fact that in the way that she speaks, she's often very dramatic. She might pause for effect a lot. She often repeats something with a low whisper to try to drive it home. She has these intense stares that we see very often. Her highs are very high, her lows are very low. And so because there's this really big expressive method of communication, some people naturally tend to be skeptical of people like that.
The truth of the matter is that speaking completely objectively, performative doesn't always have to mean deceptive. It can, but it doesn't always mean deceptive. But because people see performative communication styles as inauthentic, because nothing's that high and nothing's that low, they tend to just clump it together with deceptive. So, think about how, let's say you walk into a store to buy a pair of jeans and the salesperson comes up to you and goes, "I hope you're having a wonderful day. Let's find you that perfect pair of jeans." Most of us would feel like, "Okay, well, this can't be real, right? I mean, this can't be how this guy actually feels right now. No one's that excited about jeans. He's doing it for his job." But in reality, he might be very excited and he's very happy to help you and he's very grateful for your business. However, because that extra style of communication kind of doesn't feel too grounded, a lot of people feel skeptical towards it and feel that it's deceptive or inauthentic.
But in behavioral analysis, the way we approach it is that we look at it and go, "Okay, this person's performative. It's how they communicate." And yes, it makes it a little more challenging to see those moments where they're really trying to sell something because they often communicate that way. But let's not just throw the whole thing out. Let's look for those deviations from baseline and those little indications of body language that might give us some insight where it matters. So, this is such a great example of something that I believe is, yes, performative, but also based in authenticity. I think she's genuinely upset at Candace Owens. I think that's true, but she's using that method of communication that's performative to add to that, to make sure we know it. So, it's not just this little bit of a frustration that she's continuing on with the interview. She's really making sure we see that glare and she's like stopping and just staring. And throughout this interview at several points, we see these things that I think are rooted in real emotion but performative in the communication of that emotion. The chin up like this and then going back down over here. However, I don't know how conscious that is. I do believe that it's a physical manifestation of her actual anger. In other words, I think that after this interview, if we said, "What happened to your face when Candace was brought up?" she would say, "Oh, I I went straight face. I wanted them to know that I'm not happy with Candace." But I don't think she would necessarily know that her chin did this. So, it's weird. I think she starts off in a place where she's using that performative communication style to really let us know that she's very unhappy with Candace and the conspiracy theorists, but then I think that anger start to manifest in ways that she normally does, even subconsciously.
I was one of millions of people across the world that watched you get up on that stage and forgive the man who murdered your husband. And I think a lot of people looked at it and thought this is incomprehensible. It's almost it's almost baffling. And I want you to speak to those who are unable to understand really that act of grace.
I'm not forgetting what he did. I'm not condoning what he did. What he did is sick and evil. So sick and evil. What I am doing is releasing myself from the enemy's hands where he could have a foothold in me.
I'm not going to do any behavioral analysis on this last clip. I'm sure you guys could do it yourselves. Uh I just wanted to leave this here because it's exactly what I said in my analysis of that speech when she says that you know that man that young man I forgive him and so many people were like how can you forgive this guy by looking at the behaviors by looking at the emotions that were around that the conflict and you guys go back and watch all the things in her behavior that indicate that there's conflict with the words that she's saying and I said that the reason this is happening is because it's not forgiveness in the sense of like hey I'm cool with the guy. We're going to go hang out next week and have some pizzas and beers. It was more along the lines of she's working to forgive him so that he wouldn't have this grasp on her in the spiritual sense. And that's what she confirmed here, that she does believe what he did is awful. That's a fact. But that she's trying to forgive him in the sense of not letting him have this grasp on the rest of her life.
All right. So the rest of the interview was almost like a cover piece very much on her side and she was asked questions about her life and her beliefs and she imparted some of her ideas and philosophies on people and there really wasn't much more of talking about the difficult stuff. We looked at most of the scenes where the tough questions were asked. So, for those of us who were expecting like an interrogation style grilling here of all the facts to try to get the juicy details out, there was very little of that. And then the rest was this interviewer who was really really on Erica's side building her up and just asking positive questions. And that's fine. If that was the intention of this and there are people who wanted to watch that, then that's what it was. But for the purpose of behavioral analysis, these were the main ones. They're also the ones that are circulating the most. And I think we got some interesting stuff here. We got a couple of very confident shutdowns of the conspiracy theories and she seems rather confident putting it right there on display like look at my rings. There's nothing to see here. So, a lot of confidence there. Um, there seems to be in her behavior a good indication that she in fact does believe Tyler Robinson did this. And again, that doesn't speak to fact. It speaks to what she seems to believe. And we got some great tells for her anger or irritation or skepticism that were pretty consistent throughout. And we didn't see big deviations from baseline when the difficult questions came up. We saw quite a bit of confidence.
But let me know in the comments what you think. Do you feel like this was a productive interview where questions were asked to really get the truth out of her or do you feel like the fact that the reporter was way too much on her side kind of compromised how much truth we got out of this?
And before we go, I just want to wish a very happy holiday season to all the viewers and all the subscribers. Regardless of where you're watching from, regardless of what you celebrate and who you celebrate with, I hope it's a wonderful time. I wish you a wonderful end of year and beginning of 2026. And as a quick reminder to reiterate, because I wasn't able to upload for two weeks in December because of my schedule and this video will not be able to be uploaded early for the members, I will be donating the membership fees of three whole months to St. Jude's Children's Hospital from all of us here at the behavioral arts. So, because members get priority responses to their comments and some members get early access to videos before the public drop, I don't feel comfortable taking that money that you guys pay for the membership. So, 3 months full worth is going to be donated to St. Jude's from all of us. So once again, happy holidays to everyone, a very happy new year, and I will see you on the next.