This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," September 21, 2009. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Body Language" segment tonight, lots of action. We begin with President Obama on "This Week" with George Stephanopoulos. He asked the president if he was taxing people by forcing them to buy health insurance.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: For us to say that you have got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it is saying is that we are not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOLOUS, HOST, "THIS WEEK": Merriam Webster's dictionary, "tax," a charge usually of money imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.
OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam's Dictionary that the definition of tax increase indicates to me that you are stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise you wouldn't have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: OK, now that is interesting. Here now "Body Language" maven Tonya Reiman. She's here so much, I don't even introduce her anymore.
You see, it was a tough question, all right. As I said, it is not a tax, it's a fine, but Americans don't like that. They don't want to be forced to buy anything, but he diverts it. He diverts it. Now this is a rhetorical body language thing. He seizes on the Merriam's Dictionary to try to get away from what's happened. Did you pick that up?
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TONYA REIMAN, BODY LANGUAGE EXPERT: Well, the first thing I noticed he did two defensive gestures. He tucked down his chin.
O'REILLY: OK.
REIMAN: And then he kicked out his foot.
O'REILLY: Kicked out his, what?
REIMAN: His foot.
O'REILLY: How could you see that?
REIMAN: You'll see as it comes.
O'REILLY: On the two shot.
REIMAN: As he starts talking. What happens is when this topic comes up, the foot juts out. It's almost like he...
O'REILLY: He wants to kick George?
REIMAN: Unconsciously kicking him. No, that's actually — the lower half of the body is typically where emotions seep out of. We can control the upper half really well. But when you see movement in the lower half, that's when you recognize...
O'REILLY: That's interesting. That's interesting. So when you get agitated or uncomfortable…
REIMAN: You'll see it in the lower half.
O'REILLY: The — your foot or — there it is.
REIMAN: Yes.
O'REILLY: So that's an involuntary gesture, showing that he doesn't like the question?
REIMAN: No. That's just when you know you've hit an emotional chord.
O'REILLY: OK.
REIMAN: You've touched something. But what he does immediately afterwards now is he leans forward and then he tucks his chin and there's a very intense look. So he controls himself because that's when the finger — yes, that's when the finger stops being aggressively pointed.
O'REILLY: But I just want to point out what I said in the top. He seizes upon the dictionary thing to divert attention away, and that's — that's a very shrewd thing.
All right. Bertha Lewis is the head of ACORN, and she did appear with Chris Wallace yesterday. Roll the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BERTHA LEWIS, CEO, ACORN: And, of course, any organization, it's not entirely perfect. I think Congress, you know, will be looking at doing an anti-ACORN amendment and just singling out one organization. But we continue to make sure that all of our employees, if they're too stupid to understand that they are not reaching professional standards, we terminate them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: All right. So what did you pick up? A lot of head movement.
REIMAN: Right. When we talk about diverting attention, this is the clip that I really saw that there was a lot of diversion. I didn't see that there was a lot of questions being answered. But in addition to that, to me, she was very defensive. What I mean by that, I saw, like, body language lock down, where she's not moving her body. Once again…
O'REILLY: Right. Only her head.
REIMAN: We punctuate our words with our gestures. So when I see somebody who's controlling their gestures that much, I question why. So I think that she was feeling like she needed to keep her guard up, so to speak.
O'REILLY: But you know — now she's moving her hand there. I think she's very sincere in what she's saying. She's practiced.
REIMAN: I do too, completely.
O'REILLY: She acted; she rehearsed it. But I think — believe it, look. You know, there's a few people. This is what she believes. I don't necessarily believe it. I think ACORN is totally out of control and that Ms. Lewis — I respect her for going on with Chris Wallace, and she did come on "The Factor," and I respect her for that. But I think she does not have control of that organization. But she believes that it's just a few.
REIMAN: But, see, I — we had analyzed her body language when she was here.
O'REILLY: When she was on.
REIMAN: And it was the same thing. She comes on, and she is defensive because she has no choice but to be defensive. But when you watch her body language you can see it's sincere. It's just she feels like she's being overwhelmed by people. The gaze avoidance...
O'REILLY: So she — she would be in the category of true believer.
REIMAN: Yes. And you know, there's a lot of times she's very emotive. She looks down a lot. But she breaks eye contact often, and that gives people bad signals. When you see somebody who's breaking eye contact…
O'REILLY: You just can't stare at somebody, like I'm staring at you. I can stare at you.
REIMAN: Stalker staring is one thing.
O'REILLY: Right.
REIMAN: But breaking eye contact quite often gives an impression that you're not sincere.
O'REILLY: OK. Now, there were seven senators who voted against defunding ACORN. That means they wanted to continue to give the organization money in the face of all the corruption and arrests and everything else. One of them is a new senator from New York state, Senator Gillibrand, and Griff Jenkins caught up with her. Roll the tape.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND, D-N.Y.: And so I didn't think it was right to punish those families who were most in need at a time just because of the actions of a few.
GRIFF JENKINS, FOX NEWS PRODUCER: If I could follow up, Senator Schumer, your senior senator in New York was honored by ACORN, but he voted to cut off funding. And you guys are on different pages.
GILLIBRAND: I guess so. I would speak to Senator Schumer though. I'm sure he has his reasons.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
O'REILLY: What did you think?
REIMAN: Here, this was interesting because, first of all, she was nervous. You could hear that in her voice. It was very breathy. But in a 24-second clip she blinked 30 times. And what's interesting is that her blink rate goes up once Chuck Schumer's name is mentioned.
O'REILLY: Everybody's does. You mention Schumer, everybody starts blinking mad. Are you kidding?
REIMAN: So that was one of the things. And then she masks after that point where he's called the senior senator. She puts on that smile, that masking smile.
O'REILLY: I really hate him, but I can't say so?
REIMAN: Not necessarily. More so I really don't want you to know what my next emotion is.
O'REILLY: You know, Chuck Schumer used to come on "The Factor" all the time. I guess he's mad at us now, because he doesn't even return our calls. But I think that's pretty astute. She was very nervous. Very nervous. But anybody would be when Griff Jenkins walks up. Do you know Griff?
REIMAN: No, I don't know him.
O'REILLY: I've consciously kept him away from you. A vicious guy.
All right. Tonya Reiman, everybody. Thank you, Tonya.
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