Earlier this week, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller had a “glitch” on CNN that had legal experts and other viewers raising their brows.
Miller was discussing whether Trump has the legal ability to send National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon, and briefly (and incorrectly) asserted that “under Title 10 of the U.S. Code, the president has plenary authority.” He began another thought before abruptly stopping.
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What followed was a long pause with nearly 10 seconds of dead air. Host Boris Sanchez tried to confirm the connection was still working and then cut to a commercial break.
CNN later confirmed, as HuffPost reported, that there was a technical issue at play.
However, the moment — and the choice of words on Miller’s part, referring to “plenary authority” specifically— caught quite a few viewers by surprise. For one, it incorrectly claimed the president has nearly unlimited or absolute power. Which is alarming. And in that glitch moment, it seemed, however briefly, like Miller might have even second-guessed using the term.
To better understand what about the exchange held people’s attention, we asked some body language experts to unpack what was going on in the segment and that silent moment — and what the nonverbal communication on display could tell us.
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Understanding Standard Stephen Miller Comms
“Stephen Miller’s baseline communication style is generally quite restrained. He typically shows low physical movement, limited facial animation, and few visible micro-expressions, which gives him a composed and controlled appearance,” Beth Dawson, a communication, body language and behavior analyst, told HuffPost. “At the start of the interview, Miller sits upright with a polite smile. However, this smile does not fully reach his eyes, as the muscles around the eyes remain inactive. This suggests it is more of a professional or performative smile, appropriate for a political interview setting.”
Dawson notes that, earlier in the interview, there were behaviors associated with a situation where you are trying to retrieve information and formulate the right words for a situation — pretty on par with an interview.
“When the journalist thanks him for joining, Miller immediately overlaps with ‘My pleasure,’ indicating no time lag or audio issue at that point. His quick response shows attentiveness and a readiness to engage,” Dawson said. “As the first question begins, there is an increase in blinking rate and the disappearance of the smile, replaced by a more closed facial expression. An increase in blink frequency can correspond to heightened cognitive processing, as the brain works harder to retrieve information or manage pressure. There is also a subtle forward and backward rocking motion, which can be a way of maintaining focus while formulating an answer.”
Likewise, there were a few moments that, to Dawson, seemed to hint at navigating memorized responses (which, again, isn’t uncommon for a political interview): “In this clip his delivery sounds prepared, especially when he says, ‘the administration files an appeal,’ where his pitch varies in a way that sounds memorized. When referencing ‘under Title 10 of the U.S. Code,’ the rise in pitch on the word ‘code’ reinforces the sense of rehearsed emphasis.”
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Thinking (And Speaking) On Your Feet
But when we get to the part where he uses the phrase “plenary authority,” Dawson said the moment suggested “internal processing, as if he is reevaluating what to say next.”
“At the key phrase ‘plenary authority,’ Miller says ‘has’ and then stops suddenly, with several brief eye movements to his left while keeping his head and body facing forward,” Dawson said, noting that, at least from a body language perspective, the behavior might suggest a cognitive pause or perhaps an auditory-only issue. (CNN later confirmed to Newsweek that there was a different, incorrect audio feed playing in Miller’s inner ear monitor at the time of the “glitch.”)
Traci Brown, a body language expert and behavior analyst also adds that Miller’s behaviors and body language in the clip could be consistent with “cognitive overload,” particularly common when people say less-than-true things and are aware of the fact.
“Every body language tell of deception and stress is due to cognitive overload,” Brown said. “During deception the neocortex takes over to construct info. That’s our adult thinking and logic part of the brain. Memory is in the reptilian and mammalian parts of the brain. This is how overload happens.”
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Dawson also notes that we could be viewing “a brief moment of cognitive load” in this clip, which she adds can occur when the brains are “managing several demands at once.”
“We can see subtle signs of cognitive load, such as increased blinking and a small shoulder movement, which suggest he was mentally editing his words,” Dawson said. “In Stephen Miller’s case, the mid-sentence pause does appear awkward, but that doesn’t necessarily indicate confusion. It’s entirely possible that he realized he was veering slightly away from his prepared line of thought and was unsure, in that instant, how best to bring his response back on track. In that context, the sudden stop reads less as a technical problem and more as a moment of self-restraint, a controlled decision to stop rather than risk saying something he doesn’t want to.”
“Retrieving information, monitoring language, regulating emotion, and staying aware of how we’re coming across” are all things the brain is keeping track of in that moment, Dawson added. “In live interviews, particularly political ones, that kind of mental juggling is completely normal.”
“When someone is experiencing cognitive load, we may notice subtle behavioral changes such as an increase in blinking, a pause mid-sentence, or a temporary reduction in facial expression while the person recalibrates,” Dawson said. “There can also be a slight rise in physical movement or even some verbal ‘leakage,’ what we sometimes refer to as a Freudian slip in everyday language.”
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