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The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson pulls back the curtain on the PR moves driving today's biggest stories. Join Molly each week as she decodes the strategy behind the headlines, revealing the hidden tactics at play. With her insider perspective, you’ll learn why these PR moves matter, who’s calling the shots, and whether they’re a success or a crash-and-burn moment. Expect sharp insights, straight talk, and an insider look at what’s really going on behind the scenes.
The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
287: Election PR Showdown: Campaign Predictions with the Guys from the Reputation Town Podcast
It's a special episode featuring Molly's conversation with Canadian PR experts Warren Weeks and John Perenack from the Reputation Town podcast. Just days before the 2024 presidential election, they break down the most talked-about PR moves and media strategies shaping this historic race.
Episode Highlights
- Analysis of Trump's McDonald's publicity stunt in Pennsylvania
- The "garbage" rhetoric war between campaigns
- Jeff Bezos and the Washington Post's controversial no-endorsement decision
- Why traditional denial strategies are failing in the social media era
- Rising distrust in mainstream media and its impact on campaign messaging
- Our predictions for Election Day 2024
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© 2024 The PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson
Last Friday I had a fascinating conversation with the guys from the Reputation Town podcast. Warren Weeks and John Perenek. Two Canadian PR media experts chatted with me about the wild turns in this election cycle, from Trump donning a McDonald's uniform in Pennsylvania serving fries to the back and forth garbage rhetoric between campaigns, fries to the back and forth garbage rhetoric between campaigns. We covered how these stunts and messaging choices are shaping public perception just days before the US election. Welcome back to the PR Breakdown. I'm your host, molly McPherson, and today it's a special episode about the US election.
Speaker 1:As I mentioned, I was on the Reputation Town podcast. I spoke with two guys in strategic media relations Warren Weeks and John Paranac. Warren is a media training coach he teaches people the art of the great media interview and John Paranac, he's a principal at Strategy Corps. It's a public affairs firm and he is an expert who has spent over 25 years advising on corporate reputation and stakeholder engagement. I love connecting with these guys and I was so pleased that Warren did me a solid and let me use this recording of our conversation for my podcast. Take a listen.
Speaker 2:What's happening. Tell me what's going down. Make yourself at home this is Reputation Town, talking public relations to corporate reputations, media communications, all types of situations. Hey, reputation Town. Reputation Town. Warren and John. Tell them how it's going down. Let's go. The Reputation Town Podcast. That was great.
Speaker 3:Our guest thinks our music is funny. Welcome to episode 49 of the Reputation Town Podcast. As usual, I'm Warren Weeks, I'm joined by my buddy, john Paranac, who's always here, and we have with us for this pre-election extravaganza straight from the United States, molly McPherson. Molly, how you doing.
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm going down, I'm going down, I'm going down, down, down to Reputation 10.
Speaker 2:Don't make fun of her.
Speaker 1:I'm great, you guys? No, I love that. I love that.
Speaker 4:We hired a guy from Los Angeles to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, it was fantastic. Seriously, I like it.
Speaker 3:Sick beats. Okay. So, Molly, many of our listeners are familiar with you.
Speaker 1:TikTok, you're going crazy. You're on all the TV shows. What's the last year been like for you? The last year has been great, not because of all the publicity, that's like all the nice parts about it. I'll be the first person to say, yeah, the perks are fantastic. But the perk is really finding out more of the opinions of people on the back end. It's like I've had my hand more on the pulse of how people the back end you know, it's like I've had more my hand more on the pulse of how people think, better than I've ever had. Because, warren, like you, we do trainings. We're in a room of 20, 30 people and we hear from them. But for me, to get it from not just the US but Canada globally, that's been the best part of it. It's just getting the feedback about our industry.
Speaker 3:That's so cool, and you were just in Canada recently, so thanks for visiting us up north.
Speaker 1:Loved it. I had to get my milk chocolate when I was there, but certainly I found it interesting. Just watching CTV, watching Canadian news and the politics, I saw a through line between what what's going on in your election like with Justin Trudeau and the pressure seemed very Biden-esque to what's happening in the US. So it's quite interesting.
Speaker 3:Interesting. Paranac, what's happening with you? We haven't done a pod in a couple of weeks. Everything good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, just been usually busy putting out fires.
Speaker 3:You're lighting.
Speaker 4:You're lighting. You've done something with your lighting. It looks amazing Metaphorically and otherwise All right.
Speaker 3:So this, as we mentioned because we have Molly here and we're taping this on November 1st, try to get this out tonight. Pre-election extravaganza. This has been one of the most compelling lead-ups to an election, for good and bad reasons. For a lot of different reasons and we're going to dive into through a public relations, media relations lens, if that makes sense, and we're going to start out with something super exciting, which is grammar.
Speaker 3:Grammar is in the news today. There was an apostrophe that's caused a big kerfuffle in the States. So we go back to Donald Trump making or no, it was the Madison Square Garden. Tony Hinchcliffe makes that ill-informed joke was not a great, you know when you're. It was not a best joke Floating pile of garbage.
Speaker 3:Joe Biden the following day, who I would say I'd probably bet a couple bucks Joe Biden's going to be voting for Trump this year, but we'll see makes the comment that the only garbage I see is his followers or his supporters. There's a report that came out and AP actually did a story on this today that the White House went and kind of messed around with the official transcript, which I think is a crime. I think it's super illegal to do that, paranac, I see the skepticism on your face already. So we want to talk about the garbage comment in general. Madison Square Garden, biden's comment. The apostrophe situation Is this much ado about nothing? Is this just a symptom of this chaotic election campaign? And why don't we start with Molly on the breakdown of grammar in the news?
Speaker 1:To be honest, warren, I did not see the story about the comma and how Biden's team had altered the transcript. That's quite interesting. I think, what the overarching takeaway from all of it is. Think about all the energy, thinking, stories, investigations on commentary and what was said or what wasn't said. It's the same flavor in social media. People are focusing on comments, people are focusing on a comedian. They're not focusing on the bigger issue. That always happens in our work of PR and crisis management, doesn't it? It's a distraction mechanism to get away from the bigger issues is let's focus on the word garbage. And then, in the case of Trump and his campaign and I know you'll get into this how far can we go with one word garbage? But that's an interesting story that the AP is running about the altar transcript.
Speaker 3:Because apparently it's kind of a big thing. It's like the Presidential Records Act of like 1978. You're not supposed to mess it around. And what I found interesting from just a grammar perspective is they put the apostrophe in the wrong place. Like I don't want to be a stickler for grammar, but they tried to make it, like his supporters and they. It should have been after the S. So I thank my grade school teachers for that, but they put the apostrophe in the wrong spot. Um, paranac, what were your thoughts when you saw the story? Uh, what do you think about Molly's comments? Are we focusing on the wrong stuff here?
Speaker 4:Well, I think, I think, uh, the sort of true tragedy of the situation was the day that Biden made those comments. Harris had just done this big event on the ellipse outside the White House, trying to sort of set the stage for the last few days of the campaign, and he kind of his gaffe, kind of stepped all over her media day, and so I'm sure that the campaign people weren't too happy and, like I don't know, maybe some people were White House we're trying to like cover up. Obviously, you know, biden is not the most coherent guy right now, so maybe they're trying to cover that up, but it didn't really matter, because it did derail the media cycle off of Harris's, which was a pretty good speech. Like she can give a good speech, and that's too bad. Give a good speech, and, uh, that's too bad.
Speaker 4:I do think, though, that there's a huge difference between a trump surrogate it's kind of insulting an entire voting block and, uh, the president, the current president, who's not a candidate, uh having a having a mental gaffe, um, and, like we've seen since june, and he's not, he's passed his best before date. So, at any rate, I don't think the two are in the in the same category.
Speaker 3:That's very generous. I would say that Joe Biden seems his most coherent in the last couple of years. Over the last couple of months, you know, putting on the the MAGA hat in the firehouse. He looked like he was having a good time that day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause the stakes aren't as high for him anymore. Exactly yeah, the pressure isn't there.
Speaker 3:Or maybe he's pissed off that he was basically ousted in a coup of the White House.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and not just a coup, but he was outstrategized by Nancy Pelosi. I mean, she crafted a way to get him to walk into no longer running anymore, and then he had the bout of COVID. So it was just bad timing and a very good strategic play by Nancy Pelosi.
Speaker 3:So we're talking about newspapers. Why don't we get on to? The Washington Post declined to do an endorsement of a presidential candidate, I think for the first time maybe, if not ever in a long time, and people have lost their minds. Jeff Bezos came out with a statement that I think most people have probably seen by now. You can, you can look it up Basically, the hard truth Americans don't trust news media, was his opinion piece. How big of a deal. And, molly, we'll start with you, as you know, coming from from the States, how big of a deal is this? Is this as big a deal as it might have been 20 years ago? Why are people freaking out so much?
Speaker 1:this as big a deal as it might have been 20 years ago. Why are people freaking out so much? Well, when you look at the idea of endorsements and newspapers getting involved, we're going back to the days of I think it was either LBJ or Nixon. It was somewhere in that window of a timeframe that newspapers start endorsing. It was also a timeframe when newspapers had a lot more relevance and power in public opinion, which they don't nowadays.
Speaker 1:When this came out and I actually did a post about it I did it because my partner, he's a news anchor, and so we both gave our take on it and certainly in journalism and freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they should be allowed to have this endorsement. And so we had a lot of editors stepping down, and it wasn't just the Washington Post, it was the LA Times as well, and so there was concerns that the owner of the LA Times billionaire, that maybe there was some ties to conservative people behind him. But I have to say this if it weren't for the timing of the choice, I think Bezos or any newspaper owner could make an argument for why a newspaper specifically in the news business, which is really fractured right now I mean they're struggling why they wouldn't want to get on the endorsement bandwagon? Because every time you endorse something you're creating an alter audience who's going to go against you. So it's a lose-lose no matter what you do. But it was the timing that made it worse it was 11 days until the election.
Speaker 4:Well, and on top of that, what also happened was the same day that he pulled the or blocked the endorsement from happening on the editorial page, the day before executives from Blue Origin, bezos's space company, had met with Trump. Now they said it was coincidence, they happened to be at the same airport at the same time and you know serendipity they decided it was maybe a good idea. But this could have been something very easily managed had it been done much before in an organized fashion. I think he's right in the sense that there is a loss of credibility in the news media and rebuilding that trust is an important thing that should happen. But this was unfortunate timing and management of this whole thing. This was unfortunate timing and management of this whole thing.
Speaker 4:And on top of that, I can imagine a scenario where Bezos just decides you know what? This is kind of interesting. Owning the Washington Post for the last few years, I'm going to sell this thing, but now it's significantly damaged because there have been what? 250,000 subscription cancellations in the wake of his decision, 50,000 subscription cancellations in the wake of his decision. Anyway, not a great day for the Washington Post for sure. But, warren, from your perspective, as somebody who is a journalist and has roots in that space and family in that space. How do you interpret that?
Speaker 3:Well, I haven't been a journalist for a long time. I'm journalist adjacent. So it's funny that if you look at it'd say most of them are people just going. Ah, going crazy. 250,000 subscriptions lost, if you believe that number. I don't know who's who's releasing these numbers. I don't know, um, do you know how much it costs to get the washington post every month? Three bucks. I have a subscription.
Speaker 3:It doesn't cost a lot, it's three dollars a lot, yeah, so you know, sounds like a lot of money. The, the. I think they lost like a hundred million dollars in the last year. For Jeff Bezos he probably has this this is like change he has in the cushions of his couch not to minimize it.
Speaker 3:But the first paragraph of his statement, the last two lines, are our profession he's talking about, journalism is now the least trusted of all. Something we're doing is clearly not working and this is something that we've been talking about on this podcast almost every month is just the deterioration of mainstream legacy media, the lack of trust, newsrooms shutting down, no one's listening anymore and this is the first podcast election hundreds of millions of views and Jeff Bezos takes a shot at these off-the-cuff, willy-nilly podcasts or whatever he calls them. But that's where people are getting the news and making their decisions now. So I think he even implied that he's going to be looking to hire some sort of more right-leaning journalists I don't know where he's going to find them there's not a lot of them out there but to try to balance things out and actually cover the news. So maybe this is a hitting rock bottom moment for the paper and they try to to resurrect it and actually cause.
Speaker 3:I think people don't want to be pandered to. I don't think people just want partisan bullshit spouted at them. I think they want, like I'd like to know what's going on in the world, and I don't. I don't think we've had a place to get that for a long time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and also you know he discussed that it was a principal and I don't know if you've noticed this in your training rooms, warren, or John, in your work, but just these past two weeks, from clients and speaking to people, you know we've come from Me Too in 2016, and then we moved into, you know, blm and we're going through all these issues, and then Israel, gaza. You know we're going from issue to issue and issue and so many companies, organizations, brands, people you know public figures are so concerned about backlash. They're so concerned. Now I'm noticing, and even in my work, there are people that are learning how to stand up to it by using using language around like principal decision, which is like a rational business decision.
Speaker 1:From a business point of view, bezos' argument does make sense. You know the news industry is troubling. In journalism, there are media bias concerns, subscriptions are dropping and also you mentioned all those 25,000 engagements. I mean that's engagement. Engagement is a currency of money. He loves that, he loves that and that's what sells nowadays is engagement. Whether you're a comedian at a rally at Madison Square Garden or you're Jeff Bezos coming out with a comment like that, it creates engagement and that is currency. That's right.
Speaker 4:You know, it also reminded me of the pendulum that's swinging back Like recall. A few years ago it seemed like every company had to have something to say about the topics du jour, and now the pendulum is swinging much back the other way, where it's only if it really makes sense or only if it applies to your values or, you know, is there a real reason for us to be commenting on? This is more the rationale, and that's actually something we advise people of all the time. You should have a reason to be saying something, not just jumping in because some small faction expects you to or is asking you to, and so maybe this is also a part of that retrenchment where you're trying to position businesses in a place that makes sense for that business.
Speaker 2:Great.
Speaker 3:We'll talk about McDonald's now. Mcdonald's has been in the news for a couple reasons. They had a pretty famous person do a temporary shift there on the fry machine, which was fairly interesting. I'd love to hear your thoughts on that, just from a campaigning perspective. And then, of course, I think it was like the next day they got hit with the E coli situation that they that they were dealing with so unrelated. The timing is odd, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so this will dovetail into a larger discussion about just the campaign in general, because again, I've I can't remember one quite like this. You know, garbage trucks, mcdonald's shifts, assassination attempts this is like batshit crazy. But when it comes to the comments, so apparently I think what Trump is trying to say is Kamala Harris is not exactly truthful and to underscore that, pick that thing where she said you know, I used to work at McDonald's, they couldn't find any record of it. He goes and works there for a day. The amount of media coverage was astronomical and you have to say the photos were pretty epic of him kind of waving out the window and handing out fries. It feels like we're living in some kind of parallel universe. But, molly, how did that land in the States Are people seeing this just as like a cheap stunt? Do you think it's resonating with his base? Do you think this moves voters? What's going on with McDonald's?
Speaker 1:If you were to take a step back and look at Trump's campaign right now. On the one hand, when the comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made the comment about Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans being garbage, they initially tried to distance themselves, that they had no idea what he was going to say and they didn't want to be a part of that. Yet immediately jumps into the vernacular and the conversation about garbage and Kamala being garbage. And then Biden comes in. So there is a problem, I think, within Trump's team, his campaign team. So there's probably two sides to everything, because he does have new advisors in this campaign cycle, but it's a matter of does he listen to them or not? Now, what I find interesting is that Trump now is jumping on the stunt bandwagon. Trump is not someone that would ever, ever don a yellow vest, a garbage vest.
Speaker 1:And his rally in Green Bay that I happened to watch. A big part of it, most of the talk was about how he didn't want to do it, how he ended up doing it. So he was catering to that audience there, certainly. And then the stunt with the fries in Pennsylvania an important state for him. But also it gets into the whole idea of McDonald's and franchise owners to entirely different things. So a franchise owner decided to invite him.
Speaker 1:But now McDonald's has to say, as a value system, people are assuming that it's a de facto endorsement of President Trump. So even from a corporate reputation point of view that's interesting. So we can assume it's a conservative franchise owner for Trump. But just the fact that they're allowing him to do these types of stunts, which are so against the Trump brand. So what I think is there's a little schizophrenia in just in Trump. So what I think is there's a little schizophrenia in just in Trump. He does not feel confident that he has the influence, the MAGA support that he had in the past. So sometimes he listens and sometimes he doesn't. But to say it's bizarre, it was bizarre to watch.
Speaker 4:So I don't know Politically, I just there's always something about campaigns that try and do something with the candidate to make them look appealing to a different group. So you'll see, like campaigns that will take the candidate and shove them in a pair of cowboy boots and a denim shirt and like, trot them out. They look really awkward and they just can't sell it. Um, I think in this case trump's whole campaign strategy is they have a definite ceiling of the number of voters that will vote for him and the question is how much can they motivate people up to that ceiling to get out actually vote on election day or in the lead up to election day? And that's all it's about. That's. That's why all the rhetoric is so torqued. Up like yesterday he was talking about. Up like yesterday he was talking about like murdering, um, uh, uh, sorry, uh his daughter um, let's, let's be accurate about that.
Speaker 3:That's not exactly what he was saying, but at any rate, these are all at any rate let's, let's, let's revisit that we'll revisit.
Speaker 4:but the whole point is that he's trying to amplify and say things and do things that will torque up his base to be really Hang on, hang on, hang on. His comments.
Speaker 3:Do you know what his actual comments were, or did you just see the headlines of them?
Speaker 4:No, I remember the comments about His actual comment is.
Speaker 3:Here's someone who loves war, has no problem sending 10,000 American sons and daughters to go and die from a nice cushy office in Washington. Let's see how brave she is If there's like eight or nine guns pointed at her. That's, that's very. And here's a guy that they're actually calling him Hitler. He needs to be eliminated, he needs to be in the crosshairs and they're fucking shooting the guy in the head.
Speaker 4:So I would say like, let's back that up a little bit. Hey, he's the one saying it, but the the but in terms of like what? What is he doing in terms of these media events and media things, like, at the end of the day, that mcdonald's friday was successful and that it got him on the news everywhere and he looked like he was, you know, doing this kind of like. Oh it's great, isn't it great? Trump's down there doing this kind of like, you know, average guy job. So from perspective, I think that was a successful thing. I don't think it's attracting new voters, though.
Speaker 1:But, so to speak, to Warren and to John. So, like Warren, when you said, ok, john, we got to backpedal on this and what he? What he said Exactly. This is where I think you're both right and you're both onto something. If you look exactly at the words that he said, it wasn't rhetoric that would get people to assume that he was saying that something. There should be harm towards Mary Cheney.
Speaker 1:However, trump's rhetoric won against women, kamala, and now we have the female Cheney. And when we think of Warhawk, we do think of Dick Cheney, her father, but as he was saying it, even when you look at the words, it's not as bad. But in the implication and how he used it, those were inflamed words, which is exactly what John is saying. That is a type of rhetoric that's going to stir people up, females up, democrats up, liberals up I mean even you get into the women like they're already getting rid of our rights. Now they're speaking like this to women. It's like both sides, but primarily the Trump side. It's all about inciting outrage, because they assume outrage and engagement is going to get people to go to the polls, but I don't know if that's going to translate To me. That's what they're trying, but I don't know if that translates.
Speaker 3:If you talk about incitement, I would have to say that whose candidate have they tried to kill twice? He's hitler. He's a threat to democracy. He needs to be eliminated. Biden, we gotta put him in the crosshairs.
Speaker 1:I would say that's actual incitement that actually resulted in the guy almost getting his head blown off by a couple millimeters well, oh see, we could even get into that let's get into it and get into the I, oh god, I can't say it work-wise, but I have to say just work-wise I got a little close to this so I went deep into all of it. When you really look into and this is not tinfoil conspiracy, but would it be fair to say that, okay. So, yes, there was a shooter there. There were people who died there. There was clearly an incident that was there.
Speaker 1:Could someone argue that he took that incident incident but amped it up to a level and leveraged it to make him more of a Messiah for that side, or someone who is a leader who people want to bring down? Like can you believe this movement he did because there wasn't a lot of backup on the injury, there wasn't a medical, there wasn't any medical release. You know it was from his former physician, you know Ronnie Jackson. So it still creates, you know this, this type of a narrative that he's trying to put out there, that they're trying to bring me down. But you can't deny that something was going to happen. But I don't know if it feels like there's this movement that people want to truly take him out.
Speaker 4:I'll say this, warren I think you're right in that. Certainly there's inflammatory language on both sides, and it is actually a bit of a mistake, I think, that the Harris people and Harris herself keeps going back to. So much of the talk about Trump is deranged and he's losing his mind and he's out of control. That all may be true, but everyone knows that already. I don't think there's any voters that don't look at the news and see that when they see Trump himself saying crazy things. I think this is where she needs to be focused on more about. What would she do? What would the future like be under her? How would she be different than Joe Biden? And she's doing some of that, but she's answered zero of those. No, that's not true.
Speaker 3:She's actually talking about that quite a bit. What did she say Other than she's from a middle class family?
Speaker 4:What happens is that the other stuff overshadows it, because the news media keep focusing on the sort of the Trump axis so what are they saying about Trump all the time? And so the other stuff isn't making it through, and that's why. So, like we say in media training right, if you give the journalist a bunch of stuff that is off message and they go with it in a story, well that's not the journalist's fault, like that's your fault as a spokesperson for not focusing on what you want to see in the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think you're both right. Like Warren, you're right Like that has not been primary talking points, but she has talked about it. When I was in Calgary I was watching the town hall and she did speak about how she would be different than Biden. Now it wasn't that eloquent so you could tell that she hasn't been stumping with it a lot, but she also knows. Now I'm of the mindset we're talking about Trump being deranged but also applying, like, the age thing. I think they're speaking to undecided voters but also voters, because Trump does fit the billet, so to speak, when he does do deranged things. And the age I mean they lost their candidate and Biden because of age. I would say if I were on that campaign, you would have to keep that as a talking point because he is closer in age to Biden. So that part I agree, but it's a matter of how do you prioritize it in terms of talking?
Speaker 3:point being nearly 80, you can have very different like Mick Jagger is 80 years old, Joe Biden is 80 years old very different individuals, right. So you got to judge them on how they're able to perform. Like Donald Trump went on and I don't know if this has ever been done before he went and sat in Joe Rogan's podcast studio in Texas and talked for three hours straight, Didn't take a pee, didn't take a break, no edits, no censored start to finish. Three hours. His VP pick just did the same thing, I think. Three and a half hours. Who else would?
Speaker 3:And Kamala Harris had an opportunity to do that. What a great opportunity to reach a set of voters that she could probably gain from and refuse to do it. So, if you just look at the in terms of what they've done, in terms of the media, in terms of interviews, like I heard him say the other day, he hadn't taken a day off in 56 days, and I think that was like four days ago. So we're talking 60 days straight, morning till night I don't think I could do that and I've he's got he's got a couple of decades on me. How many people in your life do you know that would be able to?
Speaker 2:have that kind of pace. I saw her sitting on a train, kind of yawning and looking like she wanted to jump out the window the other day.
Speaker 1:Well, every president every president said that but also, like Mick Jagger is very different than a president of the United States. You know, mick Jagger just needs he could just sleep all day and then perform for three hours. It's so amazing, yeah, but there is, you know, there is boosting of music and voice behind him. You know there's all the theatrics of it. Presidential candidates don't have that when they're doing town halls. You know they.
Speaker 1:You know sometimes they have to be real and authentic and it's not to say that I think he isn't lucid. I mean, you know he is 80. There's going to be some, you know, issues there. But sitting and talking when he's not playing the role of Trump, I think is easier for him. But I think it's hard to like. You can't blame a Kamala Harris for not going on Rogan, because Rogan is a very specific audience. It's young males, many who believe in that conservative bend and they don't even like Rogan isn't even a Trump fan, interestingly enough. And there are some of those guys like Shane Gillis, whatever, they're not Trump people, but as a whole the movement of that young male. They're very conservative thinking and they're just kind of like the anti-thinking. So I wouldn't? I don't blame Kamala Harris for doing that at all, for not going on it.
Speaker 3:So when she was appointed or anointed after Biden, there was a period of I can't remember exactly but two or three weeks where she did nothing, no interviews, and I think that was the strategy. We're just going to try to do no interviews at all. Looking back, that was the right strategy, because as soon as she started doing them, I'm like, oh my God, what is happening? Who has media trained her? She finds these very difficult, but is that who you want, kind of in the room with world leaders and with the nuclear codes, not to get like kind of hyperbolic, but like someone who can't have a tough conversation with a podcaster. You want her like representing the biggest and most important country in the world.
Speaker 1:Well, but also in fairness, I mean one. She was not given any type of authority in office. I mean, she was like a figurehead, like the Biden campaign excluded her from everything she. She came in like de facto. She wasn't prepared, she wasn't running a campaign Think about other presidential campaigns. There's, there's, there's this, the runoff to the just to get elected. She didn't have any of that.
Speaker 3:Or any votes for that matter. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, okay, yeah, there is that. But she needed prep time and they needed to find out, okay, what are your positions. And she had to work with Biden's Biden's team and they weren't doing her any favors at all. He had a bitter Biden, but also they needed to determine, like, well, who are you and who are you know, what are your policies? So two weeks to do all of that, to ramp up on a campaign, I think is pretty remarkable. But it all goes back to the beginning of what I say. Sometimes it doesn't matter. No one's listening to Joe Rogan for three hours. No one's listening to all these things. They only look at headlines. People don't think you know people who engage. That's where we are now. We need to. They're campaigning for headlines and engagement. What's going to kill us? What's going to help us?
Speaker 3:it's kind of sad so we'll call him hitler. That's a good headline call. Who hitler?
Speaker 4:I'll call trump hitler, when I think you can generally say if you're calling someone a nazi, you're probably your polling says you're losing maybe, but um, I'll say this it's easy to do a three-hour interview if you don't really care about anything that comes out of your mouth, and there's no need to edit anything because it just doesn't matter.
Speaker 1:He doesn't listen to his team he doesn't follow talking points. You're absolutely right. There's not as much at stake if you're a Trump sitting for three hours than if you're a Kamala Harris sitting for three hours Totally.
Speaker 3:But on that note isn't there a little bit of like authenticity? That's a word that kind of rubs me the wrong way.
Speaker 1:As authentic though in his nuttiness. That's the thing. He isn't qualified for this job. He is not a deep thinker. He does not have programs or plans. In the debate, when he was asked what plans do you have? Well, we're thinking of plans. He doesn't have any of that. He doesn't. He is running on his brand. He's running on maga and a movement. That's why he's being likened to a hitler, because he's a movement. Now, is he a movement of hate or is he a movement of change? That's where the argument is. You know, with voters, uh, but that's what they're trying to do. We have to admit, warren, he's not a deep thinker.
Speaker 4:I think what you're onto, though, warren, is that this like the idea of doing podcasts, other long form interviews, call them is a tactic that then people don't take advantage of it often enough and there's still a lot of times, especially in a corporate environment they're shielding CEOs or shielding senior executives, to be like really manicured and no, we'll just give a tight written statement, and actually, if you properly prepare someone and give them the opportunity to, and the balance to, go out and speak like sometimes you can actually start building more than worry about how much are we losing by taking a really conservative approach to communications, and that's not a lesson that I think has been learned widely, but I think will have to be learned widely, because I don't see the deterioration of the traditional media stopping anytime soon, and these alternate platforms are only growing, and so, if you're looking at how to advise somebody well, you should definitely be thinking about these things and what can you get out of them. So I think there's definitely a lesson to be learned from what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:That is such a good point, john, you're absolutely right, because I think right now we're at this point, this intersection right now, where we're getting beyond, like I said, the time of that extreme backlash, where there's this fear of it. Now a lot of boards and CEOs and leadership and C-suites still have fear. This two weeks I've dealt with nothing but that leadership, c-suite board fear. But it's like Bezos coming out and making that hard decision. Trump's whole campaign is he can say the unsaid, kamala Harris can't. Those are the people who I think are more, are getting, are more effective in what they want to do, because some people sit back and they're so afraid, but the former president, trump's in the base, so so the ones are like all right, I'm saying it, what are you going to do and it's effective.
Speaker 3:And to be a deep thinker, I don't think is a prerequisite. I don't think either party's got a deep thinker at the top of the ticket at this point in time.
Speaker 4:Like I said to you, warren, before we have a situation that we're trying to find the least worst choice.
Speaker 3:That's my approach to it. But, molly, if I'm not mistaken, you have military folks in your family, don't you? Yes, yeah, my daughter's active duty. And so when Trump makes that comment about, you know war hawks in Washington sending 10,000 folks overseas, doesn't that resonate with you as a parent and as a military person that, like someone, is actually seeing these people as human beings and not just cannon fodder?
Speaker 1:Well, but it's like this when Trump says something, I don't immediately assume he believes it. I don't Everything out of his mouth. He is speaking to a very specific audience. Conservative, a lot of times, southern male military. That's a persona of a voter. That's who he is. Trump isn't pro-military per se. He got out of the military. These kids didn't go to military.
Speaker 3:He's pro not having people killed in wars that just line the pockets of corporations.
Speaker 1:Well, I think he's pro because that's what his conservative Republican ticket says. If there was an argument on the other side and all of a sudden he was liberal, he would. He would say wherever the electorate is sending him. It's just that Trump is, because he is a Trump tooth teller and he can say the things, and he can and he has the ability to put the rhetoric out there that, like a Kamala Harris or Democrats, just aren't strong enough to do. But where we have to give it to Kamala, she is speaking more like a Trump with and now we're getting into these bickering wars about garbage and everything she's speaking not just the rhetoric of Trump, but the rhetoric of how people talk nowadays as a culture. This is where we are as a culture and that's what I think our campaign is. It's the campaign of our culture.
Speaker 3:It's a little late for her to be picking that up, though, Like it's four days away.
Speaker 1:I agree no, I do agree with you on that, and I think they're scrambling and they tried to take advantage of that comedian. I did think they got a little bit of some. I think they got some traction there, but I was seeing that Jennifer Lopez, who frankly was speaking at the rally, who I think was doing that for a reputation, turn herself because she has to distract from all these.
Speaker 1:Sean Combs stuff that she's dealing with. So for Jennifer Lopez, I mean that's brilliant. Every Puerto Rican is going to come out, you know, in support of that. But yeah, what it really comes down to, warren and John, it's just the swing states and the polls. Right now, the polls have her just ahead of Trump, which is actually remarkable, considering that she wasn't a candidate in the mix. I mean it is remarkable, but I don't think it's so much her than it is not him.
Speaker 3:Not all polls. I will say that.
Speaker 1:Not all polls, but overall. When you look, when you look at the sum not the parts of every poll, but overall, if you look at all the sums and I was just looking at them she's kind of inching ahead, but it doesn't mean that she's going to be ahead. It really I really don't know how it's going to shake out, but I'm surprised that she is as far up as she is. To be honest, I thought she'd be well behind.
Speaker 3:Maybe one of the things that's going to be a result of this. We talk about the impact on journalism. Maybe it's the impact on the polling industry and pollsters in general. When's the last time you responded to a poll?
Speaker 1:Right. I mean people are questioning that. I mean the polls are under scrutiny as well, because a lot of times they don't come to fruition and they don't work and people, the public, just has trust issues with everything, as John pointed out, with the press earlier, yeah, but also polling, because sometimes it's the press who has the poll. You know the Wall Street Journal poll. So I think every everybody scrutinizes and everybody has trust issues with every established, every organization out there, institution.
Speaker 3:So just to recap, can I'm trying to get a consensus on something here that we think the podcast, the long form interview, is kind of here to stay and a bit of a refreshing way to look at political candidates, and if you're looking, for example, for the Canadian election that we have coming up in the not too distant future, that's something that maybe people should be looking at instead of sitting down for the seven second soundbite you should be looking at instead of sitting down for the seven second soundbite.
Speaker 4:You should be sitting down for the two and a half hour interview. It should be in the mix.
Speaker 3:I'm not saying choose one or the other but I think you should definitely be looking at those opportunities, Cause if you look at um, wasn't it when, um, when, uh, when JD Vance got selected, which I think was right around the time of the shooting in June? Was it June or July?
Speaker 1:Which shooting? Oh, you mean of Trump?
Speaker 3:When they shot his ear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was right before the RNC, so it was right around then and then it was the weird he's weird.
Speaker 3:Remember the word that came out he's weird weird, weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Jeff Walls Kamala's pick.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he called J, he called JD Vance, weird. And then you listen but it well, it worked. But I don't think it's working anymore because like, people are like listening to the guy and he's talking to anyone with a microphone and you listen to the guy for like 15, 20 minutes. Like this guy's not weird, he's like seems like a pretty, pretty normal guy. So it only works if you read the headlines.
Speaker 1:Well, it did work, you know, because when he came out, I wrote an article for Forbes about how Tim Walls optimized.
Speaker 1:You know the weird line.
Speaker 1:Because it did work, because the things that were coming out of his mouth but also the headlines wasn't just a deeper thing, it was just the headlines, because that's all people read now or talk about on social media. It was a great quip. It worked because it also spoke to how a lot of people were thinking and also JD Vance did not have a lot to stand on in terms of background and people questioned his motives because he was very anti-Trump and all of a sudden he's pro-Trump. But what you're noticing correctly is that we don't see Tim Walz out there as much because he did not perform as well in the VP debate and JD Vance performed so incredibly well in that debate and he didn't look weird, and they called out Tim Walz on some of the things that he said that weren't true. So I think Walz now has a backseat in the campaign and we don't get his homespun Midwest charm anymore. It's really about Kamala trying to point out no longer weird, but deranged, as you mentioned earlier, warren, you see him playing xbox with aoc.
Speaker 3:The other day they're playing madden, did you see? They had tim walls and aoc. They had them like on opposite ends of a computer playing um, playing madden, and just chit-chatting. It was supposed to be this event that made you humanize and everything else. His controller was off, like that on the xbox it has this little circle and if it, if it's on, it lights up and it was off. So someone else was playing and at the end of the game the score was zero, zero. So I'm just like is anything real in this world?
Speaker 1:I know, everything's a stunt.
Speaker 4:Well I was just gonna say all those political events are highly staged anyway, so it wouldn't shock me if, if, if neither of them were playing.
Speaker 3:So it's a. We've only got a few minutes left. Why don't we get into kind of summaries and I'm going to ask everyone for a prediction? I know this is like. This is one of the things we tell people not to do in our business, but just for for fun, for kicks, just taking the pulse of where do you think things stand right now? What do you think is going to happen on Tuesday, because a lot of people are saying we're not going to know on Tuesday. And then what do you think is going to happen after Tuesday? And Paranac, why don't we start with you?
Speaker 4:So what's going to happen? Well, as Molly said, the polls are really close. I think, at the end of the day, the polls are all tied and what will determine the outcome is the get out the vote operation that each party has in those key swing states Michigan, wisconsin, pennsylvania, georgia, probably maybe Arizona, and that'll be basically the fulcrum of where it tips either way, and I have to imagine that the democrats probably have an advantage in the quality of their get out the vote. But who knows, right that that's just, um, that's a educated guess. But I don't think we're going to know the outcome, definitely until the next day.
Speaker 4:I remember last time, you know, because some of those states don't even allow mail-in votes to be opened until election day, you're counting tens of thousands of mail-in votes from service people overseas and people who weren't available to vote on election day and all those sorts of things. And it just last time, I think in Pennsylvania they didn't get those counted until 6 am the next morning or something. So maybe it'll be better, because last time was a COVID election and there were a lot of other protocols in place that made it more complicated. But having said all that, I think Harris will eke out a win as far as the Electoral College goes, I'm guessing she's going to net out, if she wins, the states, I think around where Biden was. So just over 300 electoral votes, but the margins are so close it could go either way.
Speaker 3:Interesting analysis, molly McPherson.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I second everything that John said, why I think Harris is going to eke out despite the polls being so close. One he brought out the Electoral College. I think she does have the advantage there. I mean polls are saying it. But I do think she does have the advantage there. I mean, polls are saying it, but I do think she does have the advantage. But I also think part of the voting behind her it's not only getting out the vote, but it's the issues, and it's the issues that's getting lost intentionally, because it's an issue that Trump does not want to talk about.
Speaker 1:There are a lot of young people out there who are not involved in polling because they're not picking up phones anymore. Two there are a lot of females out there. There's a lot of female votes. There's a lot of black females, a lot of black vote. We have to remember what she is as a candidate. She represents marginalized people. But this issue of the right to choose conservatives are not going to make that as much of a talking point, for very obvious reasons, because they think the head person spokesperson, president Trump, years ago believed that women had a right to choose. So it's a very conservative talking point, but it does threaten, you know, half of this population. So I think it's going to be the young female voters that are going to make the difference in the swing states, and the electoral college is just going to favor Kamala Harris.
Speaker 4:You know it's interesting. You say that because, as a political observer, we've been waiting for decades for the election where young people come out en masse and actually deliver, Like oftentimes people talk about oh, the young vote's so important, but they don't actually show up on election day. But this could be the turning point where it actually changes. So that's an interesting observation, Warren. What do you think?
Speaker 3:I think Trump's going to win and I believe that it's because and I'm speaking as a Canadian, so I feel a little weird. And I believe that it's because and I'm speaking as a Canadian, so I feel a little weird. I must say, originally my family four brothers from Europe, came over, settled in the States and then kind of spread out throughout the world. So anytime I am in the States I do feel like I'm kind of at home. I would say that Trump's going to win for a couple reasons. I think he's out-campaigned her vigorously and we'll see if that pays dividends.
Speaker 3:I feel that people are sick of the border situation, the crime situation, the uh, the economy situation, inflation, forever wars and um, I think that he has done, uh, a really good job and again he's. You'd love to put them in a box and have them say some things that are a little less crazy, but I feel that on election day, those people who have been just angered about the like, the, the big thing I hear people say to her in interviews and she hasn't really responded to I'm going to do this and that on day one, why haven't you done it over the past four years? So I think, having said all that, I think Trump's going to win.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I think the immigration issue is definitely an issue because it's that strong for her. But also as vice president, you don't have any authority to do anything. So that's why that argument it's a tough one but it works. People will believe that and they'll think that is part of it. But Biden, biden and the Democrats can't come out and say that Biden shut her down on everything and her office down on everything. She couldn't do anything but compelling point, warren definitely.
Speaker 4:We'll see we should go back to. What's really funny is like when they first invented the role of the presidency and the vice presidency, the loser became the vice president. So can you imagine, oh, can you imagine? Can you imagine, oh, my goodness, a president Harris with a vice?
Speaker 1:president Trump. What a disaster. It'd be fun. Yeah, it would be. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:Great chat, any parting thoughts, any final words, anything we haven't mentioned. It's been a lot of fun and uh, predictions are always kind of messy, but uh, hopefully we'll have a bit of a chuckle next week and hopefully everything's peaceful and it doesn't. You know, I saw them doing black hawk uh exercises at the white house.
Speaker 4:That's all a little disconcerting yeah, they're gonna buckle everything down, so it's like there's no, there's no chance of anything going sideways like last time, but but, um, nothing, nothing else. The insanity of this 2024 and everything that it's brought in terms of media and communications, that is not slowing down Like that is like buckle up, because 2025 is just going to build on this. And, uh, from the, the work that we all do, I think it just means that the idea that, oh, I have, you know, 25, 30 years of experience and I can sort of sit back and coast on what I learned, it's like no, no, no, the change is accelerating, so I think it's going to be really interesting. You got to learn how to use TikTok.
Speaker 1:Well, no, no, not just that, but you know what John is saying. It again Like I think our jobs are changing dramatically because the landscape has changed. Not just that, the technology is just a symptom of it, but culture has changed, expectation has changed and the younger generations have different expectations than the older generations. So people, company, corporations, public people, in the public eye, they have to start responding differently, and I think that this election is giving us an idea of what the public is expecting nowadays.
Speaker 3:Awesome chat. Molly, thank you very much for being with us Before we go. Where can people find you? I'm sure everyone here is following you already, but if they're not, where can they follow you?
Speaker 1:No, of course my website is mollymcphersoncom, but across all socials. Thanks, warren, for having me. It was so great to talk with both you guys again.
Speaker 3:Likewise, All the best folks, and good luck next week.
Speaker 1:I want to thank Warren and John from the Reputation Town podcast for letting me use our conversation a rather insightful one about the PR dynamics of this election cycle, and letting me forward it on to you about the PR dynamics of this election cycle and letting me forward it on to you. So, whether or not you agree with Trump serving fries at McDonald's or think the garbage rhetoric has gone too far, I think one thing is clear this election's communication strategies reflect where we are as a culture right now. If you're listening to this episode on election day, please vote. Your voice matters and, as we discussed in this episode, every election comes down to voter turnout in key states. The polls can say whatever they want, but what really matters is who shows up.
Speaker 1:If you found value in today's analysis, hit that subscribe button and join my community of PR enthusiasts who appreciate diving deep into reputation management strategies. You can follow my real-time breakdowns on PR moves on social media, but you can also join my Patreon. It's patreoncom slash Molly McPherson. So this has been this week's episode of the PR Breakdown and again, if you're in the US, please make your voice heard and vote. Thanks for listening and I'll catch you next week with another episode.
Speaker 2:And, seriously again, all types of situations. Hey, reputation Town. Reputation Town Warren and John tell them how it's going down. Let's go. The Reputation Town Podcast.
