The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

The PR Hits, Misses, and Face Plants You Missed This Week

• www.mollymcpherson.com

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This week’s episode gives you a front row seat to my Friday live sessions, where culture, crisis, and community collide in the best possible way. Think of it as a sampler plate of reputational highs and lows. Some hits. Some misses. A few absolute disasters. And plenty of sharp commentary from the people who show up ready to spar.

We dug into the stories bubbling across media, politics, entertainment, and news. 

Here’s what we got into:

• The tightening screws around Pete Hegseth and the trip wires Trump keeps casually laying in public.
 • Signal Gate, and why the smallest digital habits always tell the biggest story.
 • The American Eagle campaign, Pantone’s baffling color of the year, and the new era of rage bait.
 • Spotify Wrapped’s identity crisis, including why the app suddenly thinks everyone is eighty.
 • The Lizzo Substack pivot and why her cancellation narrative leaves out the part that actually mattered.
 • The Belichick and Jordan Hudson saga that refuses to stop producing plot twists.
 • Erica Kirk’s full rebrand tour and what happens when an influencer decides to shed the bling.
 • The royal chaos machine that somehow keeps spinning even when no one is asking it to.
 • The early contenders for 2025’s best and worst crises, including a few names the audience threw in with real enthusiasm.

If you want the unfiltered version, join us live next Friday. Right now, the streams run through Substack, but soon you’ll be able to watch on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. The room always warms up fast. The opinions never stay polite for long.

Until then, pay attention to what people actually react to, not what the talking points tell you. That’s where the truth hides.

If you work in strategy or communication, join Molly on December 17 at 12 PM ET for a 60-minute live media training that breaks down a crisis in real time. RFK Jr is being hit from two sides at once. Now Olivia Nuzzi’s memoir is out, weeks after Tatiana Schlossberg’s essay landed a punch. We'll walk through the headlines, the data, the sentiment, press coverage, then map out what a competent response would actually look like. Click here to attend. 


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SPEAKER_00:

Hey there, welcome back to the PR Breakdown. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. Welcome back to all my listeners, or welcome in. Either way, you picked a good one. This week's episode is a taste of the live sessions I do every Friday, or at least I'm trying to. On Substack soon, thanks to Substack Technology, I will be able to live stream simultaneously on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. So everyone's gonna be joining the party soon. If you haven't checked in on my Substack live chats, every week we dig into the hot stories that are bubbling up in culture and crisis land. I bring the stories I'm wrestling with, I'm watching, I'm trying to figure out. And then the community in the chat brings their knowledge, their questions, and yes, thankfully, their sharp humor. For this episode, I pulled together the PR hits and misses that we were all talking about last Friday. Think of it as a sampler plate of reputation chaos unfolding in real time, or at least a couple days ago. And you know how it goes. Give people the floor or the chat, and suddenly everyone has votes, opinions, links, clips, and I encourage it. So take a listen to the episode and come back next week when I break down the best and worst PR crises of the year, 2025. I've been asking people on social media and in these live chats to share their choices because coming up with my list is half the fun. The other half is definitely getting your list. You're gonna hear some of the choices that came in the chat last week, and I would love to hear yours as well. Take a listen, and hopefully next time you can join us live. Hello everyone. I did a pivot here. Typically on Fridays, I do my top, what do we talk about? Our top PR stories for the week that I'm watching reputation-wise. But it is the end of the year. I thought, why not give you some of the PR hits and misses for the week? I want to get your thoughts on it as well. And then give me your choices. Let's do the quick hits of the week. Does anyone have any thoughts, hits and misses for the week? I'm doing so many. I have best and worst hits. We got to settle on what we're gonna do. I'm just gonna give you a couple of them, and then we're going to end here with our list because when people start thinking about 2025, and as Manny pointed out, yesterday was the impromptu, that was Vaultish. I like how he said that it was Vaultish list. And the names were fabulous. They were really, really good, the brands and the names. But I had someone come into my DMs and start giving me Scuttle, which is one of the great things that I love, is when people give me scuttle about certain things. Someone also mentioned to me that AdAge named Astronomer, the ad, the Ryan Reynolds produced ad with Gwyneth Peltrow for Astronomer. And I know so many people think this. I am not one of them. It was listed as one of their best ads of 2025. I'm not quite sure of the metric that they are using, but my metric of reputation makes it a massive, massive fail when you send millions, probably, six figures minimum, maybe up to a million. I think I read a million to Ryan Reynolds to fix a reputation problem when he's in the middle of a reputation problem. So go ahead for your list. We can put down Ryan, we can put down Blake. So many people already did that. So quickly for this week, let's just do our PR hits and misses for this week. I have a couple. Right before I hopped on, I was texting back and forth with a client. When people are pissed off online and what they complain about, and then when they start to complain, they start to poke and dig. And then that's how these crises happen because they usually start with something. That's going to be my leadoff for my list for the week. The watch list that I sent is the first story. So every Monday, if you're in the membership, you'll get this list because I also want to know what you're watching too. 100% Pete Heggseth. The screws are tightening so hard on this guy. But what I noticed was the press on Sunday with Donald Trump when he was explaining Pete Hegseth and doing the second shot. He was agreeing doubling down in support of Pete Hegseth. But to me, how he said it almost when he came out and doubled down, it's he set a tripwire. Pete Hagseth is on his way out. He's setting up Pete Hagseth to fail. And then Pete Hegseth is setting up Admiral Frank, but actually I think he goes by Mitch, Bradley to fail. So it is a cluster clock, if you know what I mean. So I actually think Pete Hagseth, and it even though the Pete Hagsh is a Secretary of Defense, I won't call him anything else. In my work, in my client work, it's the same thing. And like I was saying, when I was going back and forth with this manager, there are just tells that are out there. And the tells on Trump and watching him, I was watching the cabinet meeting live this week because Greg, he was doing the, they needed them to fill in on the new news. And then I kept it running, and they happened to his station happened to run the cabinet live, and I'm watching Trump fall asleep. It's not only all the other sundowning in the middle of the day, the things that are happening, but I don't think he cares. He just doesn't care about any of these people. All right. So Hegseth, definitely one of them. Another one, I threw this in today. Is it just me? Let me know. Did anyone get their Spotify wrapped? All right. So, and let me know this week if you guys have anything else this week. Also, Signal Gate is crushing. That's what I want to say. The screws are tightening on Pete Hegseth. Remember the whole signal gate? I did a podcast about that a while back of Pete Heggseth using Signal app. Oxford University names Rage Bait as word of the year. I think, oh, what did someone just tell me this? I think it was on TikTok. They were comparing. I know what it was. Well, thank you, Gregory. So we all know American Eagle. Now, I'm gonna tell you this right now. You guys let me know. Is American Eagle reputation-wise a win or a loss? We kind of talked about it yesterday. But American Eagle, what do you think? And it and it ties hand in hand with Sidney Sweeney, right? But Oxford University, their names Rage Bait is Oxford University names Rage Bait as word of the year, and Greg says it's two words. And he's right, it is two words. Nothing gets by Greg. But there's rage bait choices. American Eagle to me is a rage bait ad campaign. The other ad campaign from this week, Spotify thinks you're 80 because you stream jazz and classical. Okay. My 23-year-old was 73. My 21-year-old was 74. Or no, 77. I was 70. Yeah, that's why the whole thing is great. The stock market says American Eagles will win herb. Yeah. I'm going to put them in the win column. I think they'll probably be in our win column. I think they're going to be in our win column. But the other brand, did anybody see? And this is what someone was texting me on the back end there, a journalist, the pantome color of the year. I posted it on Substack today and also on Threads. Anybody see the Pantone Color of the Year? And I wrote back to this journalist. They're at a network, they write for a network. I said, it seems very American Eagle-esque. Did anybody see the Pantone color of the year? I had posted when I heard the name of it. It reminded me of Private Dancer. It's cloud. It's cloud. Yeah, it's not a color. It's like a creamy, it's like an oatmeal that's been sitting out for a couple days. Pantone's president talked about it, really? And she's a black woman. Oh, I have to see then the response from Pantone. It's not getting good vibes here. Now you could say they chose this cloud white because where we are right now is in nothing a world of nothingness, like nothing. But yeah, so it's cloud dancer. So yeah, in my head, all I can hear the brain worm is I'm your private dancer. But to make it in this day and age of animals, do I want to say xenophobic? I guess I could. I wonder how it landed. Cloud Dancer is a Native American name. Oh, that's in there as well. Caleb, you love private dancer. So there's that. So there's Pantone. I said this is going to be a bad crisis and they will not recover. They will not recover from this. It wasn't a cancellation. They're still in it. So yesterday, I'm at my salon and I'm sitting there on Substack, and there someone has just opened a Substack and doing something that is straight out of the Molly McPherson playbook. I am not talking about Blake. I'm it is not Blake, which by the way, December 17th, 7 p.m. Eastern time, Dr. Abby is coming in the vault. We are going to do a one-year roundup on Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, and Justin Baldone. Will Blake and Ryan be on the 2025 list? What do you guys think? What do you think? Okay, Herb saying Ashton, Joe and Sophie. No, Caleb, I like your timing, but not Joe and Sophie. No, same time of year. I'll do more hints. I'll do, I'll do more hints because I have to. Oh, Ashton could you, by the way, his wife, Amila, right? Where did she pop up recently? I think she did an article about being in the mom's group or something like that. And I thought, ooh, that was smart. So she's trying to distance herself brand-wise from her husband, Ashton. Yeah, something in town. She was doing something in town. Do you think by the at the end of 2024 that we'll still be talking about Blake Lively at the end of 2025? No. Well, yes, Louise, I did because a year ago, the Friday before the Christmas holiday is when Blake Lively filed that complaint against Justin Beldoney. So we are going to do a one-year revisit. So December 17th, 7 p.m., if you want to join me in the vault. It's for members only in the vault. We are doing a deep dive with Dr. Abby. I'm going to talk about the reputation of it, and Dr. Abby's going to talk about the psychology. Mila Kunas, thank you, Herb. I can always rely on you. Reveals she's head of the HOA. That's what it was. Oldheimers Association. For her, and I love this, her Beverly Hills neighborhood. It's like she tried, but she did. Oh, Prince Harry Skit on Stephen Kilbert Colbert. Even as a Brit, Carla, you're a Brit. Who the Washington Post, an opinion essay in the Washington Post, it was so biting about Megan's new program comparing her to Wallace Simpson. It was really, really good. That when you're a royal in love and you've been excommunicated or by choice, which really kind of in a way, Harry's not a king, but they kind of excommunicated themselves. What do you do? You sit and you make jam and you go on Stephen Colbert. You go on Stephen Colbert, right? Okay. So we bounced around a lot. But no, this artist, and then I'll wrap here and then we'll go to our list, our tops. Sephora's Christmas ad. Someone tell me, what was the Sephora Christmas ad? Did they do something? Yeah, it's not Wallace Simpson. Yeah. Like Wallace Simpson, they quoted that Wallace Simpson said something. Love, love is a difficult thing. When you sacrifice for love, which let's face it, so this artist is on Substack now. And this artist posted there's two essays on there Mariah and Sephora. So I'll look at the Sephora ad with Mariah Carey. Interesting. But this artist was canceled two years ago and is still canceled and went on Substack and wrote an essay about being canceled. And I'll give you the title, I'll give you the title of it and see if you can guess it from the title. Cancel Me Again, a canceled woman's take on why everyone should get canceled at least once. Who wrote that article? I saw that right away, and I had to read it. And I read it and I already started writing it. I went, girl, but I can't write that because then I'll be lashed at that. But but when I say girl, I call my daughters girl, I call everybody girls. I want to write, girl, you were not canceled because of these reasons. And do you think who do we got? Sherry, Chris, you got it. Straight out of the Molly McPherson playbook of when you're canceled on one platform, you go to a you go to the opposite platform and you write there. So Lizzo showing up on Substack, it's like showing up on LinkedIn. I mean, you would never expect it. But she's in the replies. I mean, I believe that that's her in the reply. I was reading her essay about being canceled, and she's naming all these things that she did. And my podcast next week is going to be about it. But I read it and she said, This is what the reasons why she was canceled. Doing a smoothie detox, wearing a mask, not wearing a mask, playing a crystal flute, crying, complaining, saying I make music for black women, unknowingly using, do you remember that when she used the slur in a song? Which I think was before the cancellation, and she changed the song, whatever. She talked about, I don't know if she went to a Lakers game where she went on, she was in the court and she kind of had an outfit on that showed her butt cheeks. But anyway, but when this whole article she's saying about being canceled, hey, if you haven't been canceled, yet what did she not do in this article? What did she not do? She did not name the reason why she was canceled. She was not canceled for those reasons. And she does mention conservatives came after her or whatever. When conservatives come after you, especially if you're a singer, if you're Lizzo, you're a black singer, you're a black singer, loud, proud, you are all out. You are you and you make no excuses who you are. Her brand was fantastic. It was close to it was not canceled for those reasons. Yeah, conservatives may not have liked what Lizzo did, but that's not why she was canceled. If conservatives don't like you and you're Lizzo, that's not cancel. That's engagement. That's what makes you big. It's a pain. You're not being canceled. You're being boosted because it's negativity online, and that's what makes people important online. You were canceled because of how you treated your dancers. And more than that, and it actually that wasn't the reason why you were canceled, really. I'm actually writing this article, my rebuttal to Lizzo right now. And it's actually more of a Lizzo let me help you. She was canceled because she hired Marty Singer, who is a lawyer, Bill Cosby, Charlie Sheen. Come on. And the response was to go after the dancers. That's why Lizzo was canceled. She wraps up my PR miss for the week. That is my biggest PR miss for the week. And she does not deserve to come back. Now, I will say I don't blame Lizzo because this is her representation. She needs new representation badly. And reading her article, maybe it's just me if you guys want to read it. I feel parts of it were her, and then other parts weren't her. And if I had to guess, her team is made up, she has the lawyer, Marty Singer. Who else Marty Singer in our group? Remember, we talked about Marty Singer? Jeremy Renner hired Marty Singer. That's how I look at it as a reputation manager. How do you know someone's guilty in Hollywood or in the whole entertainment world? Is when they hire Marty Singer. Because he's the lawyer who gets off people who are guilty. And Lizzo, but they think, oh, he's a bulldog, but he does not understand online sentiment and how it works. He does not understand. There is zero accountability to it. So that's our podcast next week. What do you guys think about the whole Lizzo thing? Is it just me? Am I screaming in the woods? Okay, so that's my week. That's my week for oh, I joined late. I'm in Lizzo's private channel. You are? Who else is in Lizzo's private channel? What is what is Lizzo's private channel? Lizzo's Substack rebrand is so wild, isn't it? It is so contrarian to her brand. It is so contrarian to her brand. I completely agree. I think oh, this is what I was saying. Her team does not have a true reputation manager on there, someone who understands reputation management. She has publicists, and here's the thing: this is nothing against publicists, but too many people in the entertainment industry or in the space, and even if it's not entertainment, even if it's, I deal with a lot of content creators and influencers. One person actually, I'll say this on TikTok. I posted, what are the oh, juictey? What kind of juicy T is she dropping in that private channel? Exactly. But speaking of Juic T, and I'm just gonna give you the heads up right now, I cannot tell you the juicy tea but someone in my comments asked the asked asked me, how come you didn't comment on this? And I let it go. And the reason why I didn't is because I was hired to help someone because of that said crisis that was unsaid to me, but it but it was huge. And this person, but it's the same thing. They get publicists who come in and they hire publicists who act like crisis managers. Publicists are there to get press for people, to get engagement. Crisis managers and reputational managers like me, we're out there looking for risk and we tell you what not to do. We want to pull you back in. And publicists want to put you back out there. When when a crisis happens, what these publicists do is they go out, they put the stuff out there to try and claim it, and you can't. That's when you lose it. I think it was just a ploy to change your image. Yeah, it was. Lizzo is trying sometimes when you feel that someone watches you and takes advice from you seriously. I think someone on Lizzo's team looked at my stuff because I've done a lot of Lizzo content. I think I did six posts two years ago, but I did a documentary with ABC News. I did the nightline NPR, and I've said the same thing over and over in my playbook. And actually, this big kind of crisis that happened in the news that I really can't comment on. The person at the center of it told me. They said, I follow you. And this was a statement that I thought would follow your framework. And I was, oh my gosh, you forget. You forget the power of social media. I was wow. And I did say on the thing, I went, nicely done, but there was a butt in there because there was this outlier thing that they had to deal with. I'm really happy you mentioned that. I didn't do that research yet. I'm gonna thank you for that in the podcast. Speaking of Divine, Erica Kirk, I forgot to add her on our list, you guys. I think I'm gonna give Erica Kirk. I'm not a fan, but people in my vault know in my community here, we know I'm obsessed with Erica Kirk. I'm obsessed with Erica Kirk. And the reason why I'm obsessed with her is she is reputation in real time. We are watching the chameleon, the chameleon. Miss Demure, yes. I posted that, I think yesterday or two days ago, when she showed up at the New York Times Book Summit when she showed up on stage in a capelet and the Louis Baton standing there with the cape and the sweater dress and all the bling is gone. Erica Kirk is one of our people. So, what's your list, you guys? So coming out next week, Olivia Nutzi. So with the JFK or at The RFK, she's gonna get for the week, she's gonna get thumbs down for the week. Thoughts on the Pantone Color of the Year. We talked about that. That is apparently growing to be a PR miss, like a big time miss. But I learned in the chat that, oh, Dr. Oz, funny, a client that I had this week, someone really, really big in a space, I'll just say. I was I was going through all their stuff and I said, Let's clean up our media section, okay? You have Jay Shetty, Dr. Oz, and Mel Robbins. That doesn't carry the flex that you think it does. I didn't say it with that snark, but they went, what? Really? I went, Really? Take it off. There's a Vice News doc. Oh, oh, Ryan. There's a Vice News document, uh documentary about Jordan Hudson and Belichick coming out next week that will be amazing. Guess who is supposed to be on extra on Tuesday? Me, because I'm in the documentary. Core Extra. They have reached out to me, the producers of Vice, twice to do a back and forth with. Is it Derek Howe? Derek Huff. Is he Huff or Howe on Dancing with the Stars? I keep going round and round and I keep forgetting it. And they said it yesterday, or they sent me another email yesterday, like, can you do an interview with him, Derek Howe? We'll do the intro, blah, blah. I'm like, I can't. I'm traveling, I'm speaking, I'm on stage. But yeah, I'm appearing, I appear in the Vice News documentary about Jordan, Jordan Hudson and Bill Belichick. I filmed it when it was warm in Newton, Massachusetts. Yeah, so I hope I hope you watch it. It's it, oh, and can I tell you, it will be amazing. It will be amazing, 100%. It's gonna be great. Yeah, Jordan. Oh, oh, well, is that gonna be Bill Belichick in our list? And Jordan Hudson, Jordan Hudson, Jordan Hudson. What would she be? A win or fail? Honestly, you guys, what do you think? Because no one likes her, right? But she's someone kind of like a Gwyneth. I'm not that I putting out the level of a Gwyneth, but people hate watcher. And so she's getting so much publicity, even like she was supposed to be on Dancing with the Stars. And she can't, and actually, that was breaking as I was doing the interview with Vice News. And I told the producer, they didn't even know that. I told them that about Jordan Hudson being asked, and they and she got pulled four hours before filming or something. It was crazy. She got they got pulled because she wouldn't cooperate. She was being difficult, saying a win. I think I might give her a win. Jordan Hudson is American Eagle. Oh, you're right. They're gonna get the win. We may not like it, but they're gonna get the win. Bill is totally on the list with the upcoming Hall of Fame vote coming up. Oh, I see that. Kraft and Belichick. And I'm gonna be honest, between all of us, part of the reason why I was happy I could legitimately say I don't want to do the interviews for the Vice thing, because even participating in it, I kind of felt a little because when you're in Patriots Nation, you just kind of support the cause. And I don't want to be coming out against a coach. I think Jordan is crashing with Bill's win lost red. Yeah, I know. It's I I saw that there's a video of him helping her with the coat. They can't, it can't, right? Mike Vrabel compared to Bill Belichick. Mike Vrabel is almost in a way kind of erasing all this stuff. On another side note, does the U.S. care for Steven Bartlett? Oh, Carla. That's so interesting. Remember when I said the Mel Robbins, Dr. Oz, Jay Shetty? I kind of feel, even though I don't, I personally don't put him in there, but I think in the world, there's, I think it maybe it's just me. You guys let me know if you think this. That in the reasonable world, that's a word that I use a lot in my work. I always tell people when they're getting attacked by trolls. Just remember, just look for the reasonable people, you know? But reasonable people now are very anti-grift, which is why the Jay Shetty's, the Rachel Hollis, the Mel Robbins of the world make me insane. Because it's grift. The fact that a Mel Robbins is people go to her for therapy makes me insane, really. But some people put Stephen Bartlett in there because he he platforms these people, right? But you tell me, Carla. I mean, that's kind of your neck of the woods, your your neck of the island. Mel Robbins is not a therapist. Bartlett is a huge grifter and oh, and spreader of misinformation. See? Yeah, I actually kind of said the same thing about this, about appearing, because there were clients that appeared with them. And and I ended up saying, Had you come to me, I would have said, no. It makes total sense. But I forgot what he did. I did a post about it. I can't remember what it was. There was a big thing. He's terrible, Michelle. Yeah. The Times took him apart, then hid the article behind a paywall. I think I remember this. Carla, tell me what he did. I forgot. The BBC went for him midway through the Dragon's Den season. He's also on the red pill list as he's done interviews claiming when you're at the top of everyone, he wants to take you down and the BBC don't protect you, which is not true given the volume of scandals and covers up. Yes. Trump canceled Kennedy Center Productions for the Feature Drawing to be held there. Okay. Of course. Oh my gosh. He kissed a player without consent. Thank you, Selma. That's it. That's what it was. Thank you for telling me. That's exactly what it was. Yep. So it really tracks. Right? It tracks. Okay, you guys. So give me also, give me your list, though, for just for our year list, our roundup. So I had a lot of people in the chat, in our thread, my community thread in the vault. Give me their choices. I think I already know my number one positive. I think I already know it. I think it's gotta be solid. Tell me who Sydney Sweeney, Duffy, Karen Reed. Where does Karen Reed fall, you guys? Oh, Travis and Taylor. Yeah, we talked about that yesterday. Yeah, I mean, geez. Do you get any better than that? Cracker barrel. Yep. He's apparently overinflated the numbers, but it was bad comms on his part. The millions were for the agency group, not social chain of loans. The times went digging into the accounts. Oh, and he's also creating his own media agency now. Oh, that's what they all do. That's what they all do. I know, right? Megan Markle! Megan Markle! Has anyone even mentioned Meghan Markle in our 2025 list? What does Megan? Is Megan positive or negative? If we're looking at analytically, okay, I actually have to come up with my parameters too. Press mention, public sentiment, social engagement. Those are the three things. And then maybe the outlier is are they garbage or not? But where does Megan Markle fall? Seriously. She gets press crazy, though I refuse to ever do any more press around with Megan Markle. I'll do it on my own, but I'm not going to ever do press because the press always, always, always for clicks. They always make it negative. Always. And I'm sick of that. She's pivoting. Oh yeah, Carla, you're UK. I would love your opinion, but not there yet. I think Markle is positive considering how low she started. You know, what are we basing high and low? I honestly think her suits Tig years. That was the right direction. Did you guys follow her then? I followed Tig really early, and I feel she was different than so many other actresses out there. She got the royal, let's say the pedigree of it all, but I think she missed out on millions of endorsement deals and other things. I think she was cusping to be much bigger, not because of her acting, which I think is mid at best, but she was a terrific influencer. And going the Harry route, the UK are bored to death of the hate articles. I'm sad about her lack of effort and her philanthropy. Yeah. But they need to make money. They need money. They need money. Someone else just reached out to me too. I'd have to talk to them, someone who worked with her. I'm like, oh yeah, we can chat. We can definitely chat. Just seems to be going in circles. It was a huge sacrifice for her, and she missed out on a lot, Carla. Yeah. Don't you think? I think she put up with a lot of crap. Meghan Markle put up with a lot of crap, no doubt racism. Even now, all this stuff, Reddit serves me so much royal stuff. You have the loyalists, and then you have there's just so many different groups, and they'll never think differently ever. And it creates all this engagement, but the relevancy of the royal family, it's waning. And then you look at William, Prince William now. Do we put William in there at all? Catherine, wait, was Catherine's cancer? That wasn't 25, was it? Someone helped me. That wasn't March 20. No, that was 24. Publicists here. TPUSA PR blunders are historic, despite media suppression, Candace destroying them. Oh, interesting. Someone else mentioned turning point. PR-wise. Press mentions, lots. Oh, we'll come back to the Burrell family. Lots of press mentions. But when you have the Candace of the Worlds, yeah, not that we're giving Candace the platform there, but I don't know, right? How many more millions did they make? I don't know. That's a tough one. That's a tough call. There's a lot of former turning point, former workers making statements on TikTok. Really? Oh, I got to start looking at this. I will say, like when you watch the video, and again, we all know my obsession with Erica Kirk. When she brought the Medal of Freedom back with the staff and all the staff looking at it, going, oh, doesn't look like one staff member at Turning Point. It's Erica. Is that is that just me? Manny, you are going to introduce me to the former employees or current employees of Turning Point TikTok algorithm. I'm thanking you now. They're young kids in their 20s. How can you not be obsessed with it? I know. I just am. Because Erica Kirk, and someone was just calling me out on this, saying, okay, so you're not Christian. That whole prosperity, gospel, evangelical, conservative Christian, conservative Catholic, JD Vance of it all. And then Usha not wearing a ring, not once, twice. And then Erica Kirk appearing at that summit, which was smart, by the way, on her part, brilliant. But she is struggling so hard. Oh, here's the PR angle of Erica Kirk. What do you do when your brand was being submissive, subservient to your husband, being the mom? And now you're the CEO, just trotting around everywhere. I'm too scared to let the algorithm get taken over by. How about Kate and Will not wearing Queen's Royal of Order pin at the banquet? Not that I know what that means, but on Reddit, I know what that means because a lot of people are talking about it. My only level of knowledge is Kate's crown, Tiara, was crooked. Is that just me? It looked really crooked. It looked really heavy. And Kate Middleton or Catherine, Princess Catherine, looks really thin, too thin. And all the pregnancy rumors. Oh, who are the pregnancy rumors? Oh, with Erica Kirk? Are there pregnancy rumors with it? Could you imagine? She said that she wished that she was pregnant with Charlie thing. Prince Will's PR team has had their work cut out from. Prince William looks so sour of late. Reddit came for me for saying supportive things about Megan. I'm also scared of that place. Oh, Reddit came for you. Oh, Carla. Wow. Oh, yeah. Reddit will come. I truly think Erica Kirk is shacking up with JD Mance. I will say there is a friendship there. Let's just say there's energy there. I think there's energy there. Reddit is such a schizophrenic platform, but I would be lost without Reddit. I love Reddit. And I'm not afraid to admit it. All right, you guys, we're coming up to the top of the hour. Help me out. If you have anything for 2025, if she had a cheating scandal, it would completely destroy her career and JD's reputation. I might, I, I, a solid, solid opinion, right? Your opinion is solid. There's this ability in this movement. And in my annoyance is less about the bigger world of it all, the TPUSA, the Erica Kirks of the world. And just personally, because I know so many people personally, as someone who grew up and went to Catholic schools my entire life, K through college, it's the hypocrisy. Because you just have those certain people who are now conservative Catholics. The hypocrisy of it all. But they all find ways to justify it, right? There's some divine reason why having all this money in the world is okay. There's divine reason why we can say all these horrible things and treat people horribly. The bar is pretty low. Yep. I mean, yet to work out what sugar means, but I'm guessing it's not as sweet as it sounds. Oh, Carla, what is it in sugar? I disagree. Megat doesn't like JD's wife. Oh, I know. They do not like his wife. And they're rooting for Erica. I think they no, oh no. The conversation they mentioned here was cheating. If cheating pregnancy, if it got that. But if JD divorced Usha and then hooked up with Erica, oh, I think they'd have a parade. I really do. Oh, sugar's what Reddit calls me. Oh, gotcha. If she hadn't affair with JD, it would be conservative wedge. Yeah. So I don't think they'd have let's talk about above the fold. It wouldn't be an affair. JD's marriage would already be over. Okay. Oh, and okay. And the bus coming out of the Trump administration that runs over people after it runs over Pete Hagseth and the Admiral and JD Vance, it's gonna run over Usha. That bus is gonna run over first, it will run over Usha. It will. It will, it will. Erica Kirk has the same story as Serena from the Handmaid Sale. I don't know. It would be a cult love story. Oh, oh, Cash Patel, thank you. Cash Patel. I think the knives are out for Cash Patel too. Oh my god. I read I think The Atlantic had an article about Cash Patel. Oh, he is, as I said in my thing, the worst. That was my in my post I did that because my daughter Quinn and I love Ben Schwartz. We love him. So to speak of Cash Patel should not even be in the FBI, much less leading it. Usha is being talked about by the South Asian community as a positive conservative role model. Well, she is, but also she's got a pretty strong background, but she is conservative. Look who she clerk for. Yeah, Cash should be nervous right now. Cash is a liability. Chris, Cash is walking around. Don't be suspicious. Don't be suspicious. That's very funny. Who isn't a liability in the White House? I know, Michelle, it's such a peculiar question, but if you think about it, there's so many reasonable people out there that would say every walking person in the White House is a liability, frankly. But in Mega World, their power is weighted differently. Even if you're not a strategic comms person, you might find it interesting or be able to use it on your work. So that's gonna be at noon. And then at 7 p.m. Eastern time, noon Easter time, and then 7 p.m. Eastern time, we're gonna do a live deep dive with Dr. Abby, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, the Justin Baldone. And really, it's less about Justin. Because we're doing the one year roundup. All right, first openly gay man, who are we talking about? Who talking about Jonathan? Her? Who are we talking about? All right, you guys. This was great. Oh, wait, yes, first gay man named Sexiest Man of the Year. Is that true? Is that true? Interesting. Okay, you guys, this was fun. You guys, this was fun. This was great. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining. Maybe we gotta put Jonathan Bailey on the pop list for that. Any other UK people here? Louise, are you serious? CIPR uses my lives for crut. Olivia Nutzi on the Bulwark Podcast. Oh my god. Yeah, we're gonna get into it. Olivia Nutzi's this this book, this this rollout for Olivia did not go as planned. All right, everyone. Thank you so much for joining. We try to be here every Friday when we can. We'll be here next Friday at noon. We'll set up the stream and then hopefully I can just stream to all places at once. All right, everyone. Thanks for joining me and have a great weekend, everyone. All right, that was our rundown for the week. A little community chaos, a little Molly chaos, a little cultural analysis, and plenty of reputational face plans. If you like this sneak peek of the live session, remember, come join me every Friday. Right now it's on Substack, but soon the live streams will hit TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. The room always gets lively, and the more, the merrier. Next week we level up with the official list of the year's best and worst PR crises. Some choices you'll agree with, some you might not, and some may force you to rethink, hmm, what a real PR crisis looks like. Until then, pay attention to what people actually react to, not what the talking points tell you, because that's where the truth lives. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now. All right, that was our rundown for the week. A little community chaos, a little Molly chaos, a little cultural analysis, and plenty of reputational face plans. If you like this sneak peek of the live session, remember, come join me every Friday. Right now it's on Substack, but soon the live streams will hit TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook. The room always gets lively, and the more, the merrier. Next week we level up with the official list of the year's best and worst PR crises. Some choices you'll likely agree with, some you may not, some choices you'll likely agree with, some you may wonder. I don't know if that classifies as a crisis. Maybe that's just Molly's crisis. Maybe that's just Molly's version. Some choices you'll agree with, some you might not, and some may force you to rethink, hmm, what a real PR crisis looks like. Until then, pay attention to what people actually react to, not what the talking points tell you. Because that's where the truth lives. That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for listening. Bye for now.

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Molly McPherson

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