A body language expert said President Joe Biden appeared to be a “dead man walking” during Thursday night’s debate with former President Donald Trump.
“I was really concerned because the minute [Biden] walked out on that stage, I felt he [was] not feeling good. His skin was pale, it was pasty, and he literally looked like a dead man walking,” body language expert Susan Constantine said, according to Fox News.
Constantine said the physical dimension each candidate projected was a study in contrasts.
“It was as if everything were in slow motion,” she said, speaking of Biden.
“His fingers and his lack of illustrators when he was talking, he was like a frozen statue up there on the stage. It really was painful to watch.”
Trump, she said, “had a more serious demeanor. He didn’t make a lot of facial gestures as we normally see him do. He didn’t flash his great big smile at anybody. He was very serious when he walked out on the stage, and it really didn’t change at all through the entire debate.”
“It made Biden look exceptionally weak, and made Donald Trump exceptionally powerful,” she said.
Constantine says Biden’s effort to rehearse full answers fell apart when he dropped a word.
“And the minute he forgot a couple of words, it was all over with, right, and then you could see that dropped mouth, and it was that dumbfounded look. His eyes would become very open and almost zombie-like. So he had that very flat stare in his eyes,” she said.
Cosmetic injections made it all worse, she said.
“He was really way too botoxed out, and that is a real problem because it can create some cognitive issues because when you shut down those emotions through facial effects, it can affect your brain,” she said.
“It really almost felt abusive in my opinion, to literally allow him … [to] go through that kind of pressure knowing that he is in this high cognitive decline was to me, almost abusive,” she said.
“And it was sad to watch. My heart broke. I mean, literally, I could have cried watching him try to force these words out the best he could and it was just super hard to watch. The emotion that I felt, of sympathy, of empathy, because he just truly looked pathetic,” she said.
Trump, on the other hand, was “very powerful,” she said.
In an Op-Ed on CNN, Stephen Collinson excoriated Biden’s performance.
“If Joe Biden loses November’s election, history will record that it took just 10 minutes to destroy a presidency,” he wrote.
“It was clear a political disaster was about to unfold as soon as the 81-year-old commander in chief stiffly shuffled on stage in Atlanta to stand eight feet from ex-President Donald Trump at what may turn into the most fateful presidential debate in history,” he wrote.
A New York Post instant survey of reactions showed that as of Friday morning, out of 3,340 people responding, 82.5 percent said Biden should drop his campaign for a second term, while 17.5 percent said he should press on.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
