TJ Walker breaks down a moment when Trump noticed Elon Musk's black eye and refused makeup, arguing it shows how Trump sees the world through TV optics. Walker connects it to Trump's media-obsessed rise and offers practical tips for looking better on camera.
It's one of the most fascinating and illuminating clips of Trump's second presidency. Take a look.
A man who was very happy when he stood behind the Oval desk, and even with the black eye, I said, you want a little makeup? We'll get you to the makeup. But he said, no, I don't think so. Which is interesting and very nice. He wants to be who he is, so you could make that statement, too. I guess so.
This, to me, is one of the most fascinating clips I've ever seen and highly, highly illuminating. Hi, this is the Community Verse. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. This is where we analyze how major organizations, businesses, governments, leaders communicate, how they communicate effectively, what's really going on and what should you discern. This, I think, says a lot, and this is not a political observation here. Happy to do that later. But this is a fascinating window into how President Trump thinks. He basically said, I can't believe this guy came into the Oval Office with a black eye, knowing every single TV camera in the world would be on him. And he turned down my offer of makeup. This is crazy. He didn't call him crazy. He said, this is interesting. But you know how when you say, well, that's an interesting choice of an outfit you put on to a family member, it means you can't believe how bizarre this looks. Now, in this case, Trump's instincts were 100% on target. I do remember watching the press conference with Elon Musk in the Oval Office with President Trump, and nothing had been mentioned of the black. I hadn't heard any reports. I saw it, and I'm looking at it, and I wasn't paying attention to anything Musk was saying or anything the President was saying. I was basically rubbing my eyes, like, am I seeing this? Is there dirt on my computer screen? What is going on? And the whole time I was wondering, did he get into a fist fight with someone? Did he anger one of his many mama babies or one of his kids? He's not on speaking terms. What's going on? So that's the real problem with not wearing makeup in a situation like that is you distract from your message. If people can't focus on what you're saying because they're trying to figure out what's going on here. If I had blood coming down my face right here, you probably wouldn't focus on anything I'm saying, you'd probably be wondering, why does TJ have a bloody face? Now, Elon Musk didn't have a bloody face, but a giant bruise. I mean, you typically don't see that on anyone who's not a professional fighter or above the age of 13 or in a situation of domestic abuse. So it was kind of bizarre. And to me, what this really shows is how Donald Trump thinks about the world. He thinks, thinks about the world in terms of television, television set, the lighting, the look. That doesn't make him a bad person. I'll leave that for others to decide. But it's an interesting window into his world. He's practically saying, I can't believe any sane human being would ever appear before a video camera without makeup, much less when you've got a big black eye. Because Trump famously does his own makeup most of the time, has what many would consider bizarrely colored orange makeup, but he is consistent for the most part. Every once in a while you'll see the hair blow up and you'll see big white here and then the orange stops here where he didn't apply it rightfully. And. But what this really does is bring us back to Trump's roots. People think erroneously that Donald Trump was a successful businessman. So here I'm going to get into some territory. Some of you might be offended. I urge you, check your facts. The New York Times has done an extensive study of Donald Trump's finances. Bloomberg, not exactly seen as some socialistic website. It's trusted by every Wall street trader in the world. Bloomberg did an analysis as well. And what they looked at is if you looked at all the money Donald Trump's father gave him from the time he was 5 years old until he passed away, it was hundreds of millions of dollars. What that means is if Trump had become a schoolteacher, not even a schoolteacher in New York, let's say he'd been a schoolteacher in Florida, Alabama, someplace where they don't pay school teachers a lot. If he had just been a schoolteacher his whole life and taken the money that his daddy gave him and put it into a low cost index fund, an S&P 500 index fund, by the year 2016, he would have been at least $1 billion richer, maybe $2 billion richer than he ended up being. Meaning all these so called deals, all these investments, the airlines, the stakes, the buy, all the Trump University, all of that basically had a net effect on his bottom line, his net worth of a billion or more dollars. But he did make some money. He made his money, by some estimates, as much as $450 million by being on TV, by doing things like putting makeup on, going into hair and makeup, getting your clothing Getting your costumes ready. Donald Trump is by all accounts a world class television performer. And I would make the case it's arguably his only business talent. It is as a TV performer. He's made hundreds of millions of dollars in that. If you look at all of his other business ventures, and I'm not counting meme coins and things that have happened during his presidency, but if you look at his entire business career, from the time he had his first flop as a Broadway producer in the early 1970s to all of his real estate ventures, yeah, some did work out. Most of them were legacy properties his father gave him and he never sold it and continued being cash cows. But if you look at the totality of his business record, he lost a billion dollars or so versus what he would have had if he just put his money in an index bond and been a social worker or a school teacher. And I think too many people miss that and they think it's somehow partisan to point out a simple fact. It's also a fact, and some Democrats don't like hearing this. Donald Trump was a widely appealing television character. He played the character of a really successful, gruff, tough business leader. You're fired, by the way. In real life, in his own business, he was known for being a softy and never firing anyone for the most part. So that's why I think this is such an interesting glimmer. They always say you can't really hide yourself, you're on camera. And the TV personalities, it comes out, it comes out with little moments like that, this idea. He didn't say Elon Musk is a moron. He didn't say that. It's just I offered him a little bit of makeup, little bit of makeup. He said no. Interesting. You could just tell if you read between the lines. He thought that in and of itself was a sign that Musk was crazy. And he tried to be polite about it. So, you know, maybe he wants to be seen as authentic. He tried to put a positive spin on it, but reminds me of someone who sees their, their daughter come home, their 14 year old daughter come home with a 15 year old new boyfriend and the boyfriend has got tattoos all over his face and the father clearly thinks it's awful and says something like, interesting mode of self expression, knowing that if I say something bad it'll make my daughter like the guy even more, so I'll just shut up. That's what it reminded me of, this whole comment on Elon Musk turning down makeup. Now a word about makeup, is it, do you have to wear makeup all the time. No, you don't. Many people who are wildly successful on YouTube and are in front of a video camera and lights every day never wear makeup. I could tell you, anyone you've ever seen in a movie, any TV show, any news anchor you like, anyone on tv, they all have makeup on. Ronald Reagan never did anything without makeup on. Most presidents wear makeup. Donald Trump, different style makeup. Maybe a little more makeup than most, but most presidents do wear makeup. I'm wearing makeup right now. No, it's only a light powder. It's just I have a mosaic powder and I recommend this to my business clients before they do TV interviews. And it just reduces. I'm a little shiny even now. But what it does is it smooths things out, makes things less. I'm not going to give you a full makeup tutorial, but I do want you to write, there's no shame. It just takes some of the shine away and makes things look a little more even. Because anyone over the age of 23 often starts getting spots and freckles, and I've got some age spots. It can be distracting. The makeup won't necessarily fundamentally change your whole look. It just makes things less distracting, a little smoother. So people can focus on what you say. But interesting analysis about the mindset and the thought process of the President of the United States.
