MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell said on Thursday that world leaders seem to be picking up on a way to use body language to “humiliate” President Donald Trump in public.
Earlier this week, French President Emmanuel Macron used what O’Donnell called the “humiliation touch,” placing a hand on Trump to interrupt him in the middle of a lie about aid to Ukraine.
“Three days later, Donald Trump walked into exactly the same humiliation trap in the Oval Office,” O’Donnell said. This time, it was British Prime Minister Keir Starmer who on Thursday managed to break Trump’s flow during a similar claim about Ukraine.
“Did you see that, that left hand?” O’Donnell said after rolling the footage. “That’s the interruption hand that the French president used. The British prime minister’s left hand goes toward Donald Trump.”
Starmer stopped short of actually touching Trump the way Macron did because “he’s British, so he’s not touchy-feely, he’s not gonna touch him, but he does interrupt him just like the French president did.”
Later in the segment, O’Donnell said the move may not have much effect on Trump himself.
“There is a kind of person whose humiliation reflex simply doesn’t work,” he allowed. “That might be what’s going on with Donald Trump.”
But others will recognize it.
“The world sees it as humiliating to Donald Trump,” O’Donnell said.
See his full explanation of the “humiliation touch” below:
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