Right now, Gov. Newsom is the leader of the party

[NJCher]

8. he mastered that nonverbal communication

I actually was in awe. Damn!
I'm a teacher of interpersonal communication, which covers nonverbal comm, thus I am always analyzing body language.

First, showing up in work clothing shows Newsom as the hands-on leader.

The nonverbal comm described in the OP: That handshake, pulling that weakling back, the knife hand to the chest, the poke to the soft tissue, the total control of the conversation and the kiss on Melanoma’s cheek showed one thing.


Yep, all of these, Aviation Pro! I'll add these comments to yours:

The handshake--Newsom holds on until he's ready to let go. That's a trump trick, if you've noticed from past goofy trump stunts, almost comical where he turns a handshake upside down in his zeal to control. Newsom obviously observed this beforehand and had that planned.

Newsom takes full advantage of his height. He has a few inches on trump who boosts his height with his platform shoes.

Note at the 1:00-1:05 mark, trump puts his hand over his belt buckle, or protecting his stomach. He is getting vibes about Newsom mastering the optics and feels vulnerable. That's what public figures often do when they feel vulnerable in front of the camera. At this point Newsom has him aware (subconsciously) that he's being handled.

At the 1:38-40 point, Newsom pats trump on the back. That's a gesture of control and Newsom casually pats him so it looks supportive, but it's really a visual control gesture.

Try it yourself sometime. I'll give you an example. One time we in the communications department had a guest speaker from another university at a meeting . This speaker talked about control gestures. One of the comments he made is that a less powerful person never touches a more powerful person, like on the arm. And especially a pat on the back, such as what you saw Newsom do.

Immediately, as a joke, I decided I was going to touch my department head on the arm the next time I had a chance, just to see if he remembered this part of the speaker's comments.

Sure enough an opportunity emerged only a few hours later. I touched my department head on his forearm and he looked at me almost in horror. (The two of us get along well and are actually very good friends.) I started laughing and pointed out the comment of the speaker and then my department head got the joke and we laughed about it. But that will show you how engrained some of these gestures are.

There's more but I've written enough. The only other thing I'll mention is the language Newsom uses appears to be flattering but it's actually putting trump in a position where he'll need to do what Newsom needs him to do. Notice also that Newsom's gestures in this section are actually in front of trump.

Look at trump's face at the end. I think it shows anger. He knows he's been played.

Well played, Gov. Newsom!

P.S.

Oh, one oddity I picked up but don't know what it's about. Notice how Melanoma opens her mouth, closes it, opens it again. Not sure what that's all about.