After surprising Democrats with a high-stakes endorsement, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) came off as “highly nervous” and “dismissive” during her now-viral “trainwreck” of an interview on Sunday with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, according to body language experts who reviewed the 15-minute conversation.
Stevens generated national headlines after she posted a video endorsing former Rep. Mike Rogers, a Republican, for the U.S. Senate in Michigan. She told reporters later that day she made the decision that morning, claiming she chose country over party. The endorsement followed an appearance with Rogers at a church service in Detroit at the exact time she was originally scheduled to appear at a campaign event for Democratic nominee Abdul El-Sayed.
The decision sparked immediate internal fallout, with key members of Stevens’ staff, including her longtime chief of staff Justin German, resigning from her office Sunday morning.
“Look, this is just a weight off my shoulders, OK. Abdul has been getting angrier and angrier. I was trying to help, and I endorsed him,” Stevens told Cooper. “There are so many Democrats who want to vote for our Democratic nominee. And they’re just being told, ‘Hey, this is a party you don’t belong in, or this is a campaign you don’t belong in.’”
The rift between the two had escalated over days leading up to this weekend. In August, Stevens endorsed El-Sayed after losing to him in the state primary. However, on Friday, Stevens had posted a statement calling on El-Sayed to apologize for his comments about Israel and to disavow an outside group’s ad. El-Sayed then uninvited her from a unity event.
Experts spotted several nonverbal red flags in the CNN interview.
Patti Wood, a body language expert, told HuffPost that Stevens seems to start the CNN interview with a plastered-on, forced smile and an “eye shutter.”
“It’s when you bring your eyes all the way closed, and it’s not brief; it’s not a blinking motion,” Wood said. “[It’s as if she’s] closing out the very first few things [Cooper] is saying. … Then, she moves into rapid blinking — that’s anxiety blinking. All these happen while she’s being introduced.”
Wood argued that Stevens frequently relied on “filler words” while shaking her head “no,” suggesting she doesn’t fully believe what she’s arguing.
“If she had delivered statements with conviction, she would have come across as much more believable and with much more integrity, but she just messed it up,” Wood said. At one point early on in the interview, Stevens “comes up out of her chair, I’d say over four inches up out of her chair, and that’s a symbolic escape move showing she wants to leave the interview,” Wood said.
Abbie Maroño, a behavioral scientist who focuses on nonverbal communication, also pointed out there was a sharp contrast between what Stevens was verbally saying and her nonverbal reactions.
“Even when two people strongly disagree, there are certain unspoken rules governing how they interact. We tend to display attentiveness when the other person is speaking, acknowledge their points through appropriate facial expressions or gestures, and maintain a basic level of interpersonal respect,” Maroño told HuffPost.
Instead, Maroño pointed to how Stevens “brings her eyebrows down and together, pushes her lips forward and nods in an exaggerated manner” while Cooper spoke, which does not align with general nonverbal communication during a conversation.
“These behaviors create an almost patronizing quality, resembling the expressions people use when they are being sarcastic, dismissive or condescending,” Maroño said. “She engages in exaggerated blinking and pronounced lip movements, repeatedly pressing and separating her lips. The effect is almost theatrical, even cartoon-like.”
“There is also a noticeable contrast between the prominence of her nonverbal reactions and the limited direct argumentation,” Maroño added. “Cooper repeatedly asks what changed in her decision-making, yet Stevens frequently redirects the conversation rather than explaining that change.”
This was a poorly handled interview.
Wendy Saltzman, an Emmy-winning broadcaster and media trainer, emphasized that Stevens’ visible frustration throughout the interview overshadowed her intended messaging.
“There’s a big difference between a tough interview and a poorly handled one,” Saltzman told HuffPost. “Anderson Cooper was asking tough questions, but that’s his job. Rep. Stevens needed to be prepared for that, particularly given the controversy surrounding her decision and the ensuing fallout, and she wasn’t.”
Saltzman noted that while politicians are trained to pivot back to core talking points, Stevens failed to adjust when Cooper repeatedly pressed her.
“You can’t communicate your way around a question the audience knows you haven’t answered,” Saltzman said. “She should have anticipated how to respond. Instead, she looked irritated and caught off guard.”
Ultimately, experts agreed that Stevens’ delivery undermined her defense.
“The goal isn’t necessarily to change everyone’s mind. It’s to demonstrate that you’re listening, that you’ve thought through your decision, and that you can explain it confidently under pressure,” Saltzman said. “Her performance gave critics something additional to focus on beyond the substance of the issue.”
Representatives for Stevens, El-Sayed and Rogers did not respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.