Election PR Showdown: Campaign Predictions with the Guys from the Reputation Town Podcast

Last Friday, I had a fascinating conversation with the guys from the Reputation Town podcast. Warren Weeks and John Pernick, 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. We covered how these stunts and messaging choices are shaping public perception change just days before the U.S. election.

Welcome back to the PR Breakdown.

I'm your host, Molly McPherson, and today it's a special episode about the U.S. election. As I mentioned, I was on the Reputation Town podcast. I spoke with two guys in strategic media relations, Warren Weeks and John Pernack. Warren is a media training coach. He teaches people the art of the great media interview. And John Piranek, 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.

What's happening? Tell me what's going down. Make yourself at home. This is Reputation Town talking public relations to court 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.

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?

Oh, I'm going down. I'm going down. I'm going down, down, down to Reputation.

Don't make fun of.

I'm great, you guys. No, I love that.

I love that we hired a guy from Los Angeles to do it.

Oh, it was fantastic. Seriously, I like it.

Sick beats. Okay, so Molly, many of our listeners are familiar with you. 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. 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, Canada globally, that's been the best part of it. It's just getting the feedback about our industry.

That's so cool. And you were just in Canada recently so thanks for visiting us up north.

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, I saw a through line between what what's going on in your election like with Justin Trudeau. Trudeau and the pressure seemed very Biden ass to what's happening in the US So it's quite interesting.

Interesting. Paranac, what's happening with you? We haven't done a pod in a couple of weeks. Everything good?

It's yeah, just been usual busy putting out fires, starting some fires.

Your lighting, you've done something with your lighting.

It looks amazing metaphorically and otherwise.

All right, 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. 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. Joe Biden the following day who I would say I'd probably bet a couple bucks Joe Biden's gonna 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, 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 have, 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.

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? Like 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 alter transcript.

Because apparently it's kind of a big thing. It's like the Presidential Records act of like 1978. You're not supposed to, to mess it around. And what I found interesting from a just a grammar perspective is the, 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 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. Paranac, what were your thoughts when you saw the story? What do you think about Molly's comments? Are we focusing on the wrong stuff here?

Well, I think the sort of 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 stage for the last few days of the campaign. And he kind of, his, his gaffe kind of stepped all over her media day. And so I'm sure that campaign people weren't too happy. And like, I don't know, maybe some people in White House were trying to like cover up. Obviously, you know, Biden is not the most coherent guy right now. So they, 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, she can give a good speech and that's too bad. I do think, though, that there's a huge difference between a Trump surrogate. It's kind of insulting an entire voting block and the current president, who's not a candidate, having a, having a mental gaffe and like we've seen since June. And he's not. He's passed his best before date. So anyway, I don't think the two are in the same category.

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.

Yeah, because the stakes aren't as high for him anymore.

Exactly. Yeah.

The pressure isn't there.

Or maybe he's pissed off that he was basically ousted in a coup of the White House.

Yeah, and not just a coup, but he was out strategized by Nancy Pelosi. I mean, she, 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.

So we're talking about newspapers. Why don't we get onto 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 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?

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, it was either lgbt, lg, LBJ, or Nixon. It was somewhere in that window of a time frame that newspaper start endorsing. There was also a time frame when newspapers had a lot more relevance and power in public opinion, which they don't nowadays. I, when this, when this came out and I actually did a post about it, I, you know, I did it because my, you know, my partner, he's, he's a news anchor. And so we both gave, you know, our take on it. And certainly in journalism and freedom of speech and freedom of the press, they should be, you know, allowed to have this Endorsement. And so we had a lot of editors stepping down, and it wasn't just 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, it's gonna, 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.

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 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, this was unfortunate timing and management of this whole thing. And on top of that, like, 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. Anyway, not a great day for the Washington Post, for sure. But, Lauren, from your perspective as somebody who is journalist and has roots in that space and family in that space, how do you interpret that?

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, the decision to not make an endorsement was basically I saw as an endorsement of Trump. It was kind of just an implied endorsement, which is why people were kind of losing their shit. If you go and look up the Post right Now, it's got 25,336 comments, and I'd say most of them are people just going, going crazy. 250,000 subscriptions lost, if you believe that number. I don't know who's releasing these numbers. I don't know. Do you know how much it costs to get the Washington post every month? 3 bucks.

I have a subscription. It doesn't cost a lot.

It's $3, so sounds like a lot of money. I think they lost like $100 million 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, 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 you're looking, this is the first podcast election. Hundreds of millions of views and Jeff Bezos takes a shot at them. You know, these off the cuff, willy nilly podcasts or whatever he calls them. But that's what people, 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 hitting rock bottom moment for the paper and they try to, to resurrect it. And actually because 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 like, I'd like to know what's going on in the world and I don't think we've had a place to get that for a long time.

Yeah, and also, you know, he discussed that it was a principal decision. And I, 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, and speaking to people, you know, we've come from MeToo 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 an issue. And so many companies, organizations, brands, people, you know, public figures are so 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 principled decision, which is like a rational business decision from a business point of view. Basis argument does make sense. You know, news, the news industry is troubling in journalism. There are media bias concerns. Subscriptions are dropping. And also you mentioned all those 5,000 engagements. I mean, that's engagement. Engagement is a currency of money. He loves that. He loves that. And that's what, 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.

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 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. It's like 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. Agree.

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.

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, 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, pretty epic of him kind of, you know, 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, 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?

If you were to take a step back and look at Trump, Trump's campaign right now. On the one hand, when the comedian Tony Hinchclip 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 this, the vernacular and the conversation about garbage and Kamala being, you know, 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 do is 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. And his, 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, he was, you know, catering to that, 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, two entirely different things. So a franchise owner decided to invite him. But now McDonald's has to say, as a value system, people are assuming that it's. That it's a de facto endorsement of President Trump. So even from a corporate reputation point of view, that's interesting. So we as 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. 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.

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. 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, like, murdering, sorry, Chinese daughter.

Let's, let's be accurate about that. That's not exactly what he was saying.

But at any rate, these are all.

At any rate, let's revisit that.

We'll revisit it. 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 excited to do that.

Hang on, hang on, hang on. His comments, do you know what his actual comments were, or did you just see the headlines of him?

No, I remember the comments about.

His actual comment is, here's someone who loves war, has no problem sending 10,000Americans, 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. 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, the McDonald's Fry Day was successful in 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 that perspective, I think that was a successful thing. I don't think he's attracting new voters, though.

But so to speak, to Warren and to John. So like, Warren, when you said, okay, John, we got a backpedal on this, on 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, it wasn't rhetoric that would get people to assume that he was saying that something. There should be harm towards Mary Cheney. However, Trump's rhetoric won against women. Kamala. And now we have, 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, we're even. You get into the women, like, they're already taking, 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.

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. 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.

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.

Okay.

You know, so I went deep into all of it. When you really look into. And not 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. 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 them out.

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. She's actually talking about that quite a bit.

She said other than middle class family.

What happens is that the, the, the other stuff overshadows it because the news media keep focusing on the sort of the Trump axis. 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 media training. Right. If you give the journalist a bunch of stuff that is off message and they go with it in the 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.

Yeah. And I think you're both right. Like Warren, you're right. Like that has not been proven 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, you know, stumping with it a lot. But she also knows now I'm, 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 they, 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, you know, so that part I agree. But it's a matter of how do you prioritize it in terms of talking points.

Like, being nearly 80 is. 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? 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. He's got. He's got a couple decades on me. How many people in your life do you know that would be able to 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.

Well, every president of Japan is going to do that.

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 now. 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. 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, too. Like, you can't blame a Kamala Harris for not going on Rogan because Rogan is a very specific audience. Fans, it's young males, many who believe in that conservative bend, and they don't even necessarily 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.

But she.

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, what, what is happening? Who, who has media trained her?

How is. She finds these very difficult. So, like, I don't.

But, like, 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.

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 the, there's this is the runoff to the. Just to get elected. She didn't have any of that or.

Any votes, for that matter. That's.

Yeah, 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. 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? It's kind of sad.

So we'll call him Hitler. That's a good headline.

Call who Hitler?

We'll call Trump Hitler. I think you can generally say if you're calling someone a Nazi, you're probably. Your polling says you're losing.

Maybe. But 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.

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.

But on that note, isn't there a little bit of like authenticity, that's. That's a word that kind of rubs me the wrong way.

Is 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. Like in the debate when he was asked point like 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. But that's what they're trying to do. We have to admit, Warren, he's not a deep thinker.

I think what you're, you're on to the Warren is that this like the idea of doing podcasts and other long form interviews call them is a, is a tactic that then people don't take advantage of and often enough. Yeah, and, 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 only growing. And so if you're looking at how to advise somebody, well, you should definitely be thinking about these things and, and what, what can you get out of them? So I think there's definitely a lesson to be learned from what you're talking about.

That is such a good point, John. You're absolutely right, because we, I think right now we're at this point, this intersection right now where we're, we're getting beyond, like I said, the, 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 fear. But it's like Bezos coming out and saying 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 and the Bezos are the ones who are like, all right, I'm saying it. What are you going to do? And it's effective.

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.

But like I said to you, Warren, before, we have a situation that this is the, we're trying to find the least worst choice. That's my approach to running.

But, Molly, if I'm not mistaken, you have military folks in your family, don't you?

Yes, my daughter's active duty.

And so when Trump makes that comment about, you know, war hawks in Washington, sending 10,000 folks overseas, how does, 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?

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, Lottie times, Southern male, military That's a Persona of a voter. That's who he is. Military isn't. Or Trump isn't pro military per se. He was. He got out of the military. His kids didn't go to military.

I think he's pro. He's pro not having people killed in, in wars that just line the pockets of corporations.

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. 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.

It's a little late for her to be picking that up, though. Like where it's four days away.

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 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. It in the mix. I mean, it is remarkable. But I don't think it's so much her than it is not him.

Not all polls. I will say that.

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.

Like 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. Like, when's the last time you responded to a poll?

Right. I mean, people are questioning that. I mean, you know, 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, the Wall Street Journal poll. So I think everybody scrutinizes and everybody has trust issues with every established, every organization out there, institution.

So just to recap, 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, 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 7 second sound bite, you should be sitting down for the two and a half hour interview.

It should be in the mix. I'm not saying choose one or the other, but I think you should definitely be looking at those opportunities.

Because if you look at. Wasn't it when J.D. vance got selected, which I think was right around the time of the shooting in June. Was it June or July?

Which shooting?

Oh, you mean of Trump, when they shot his ear?

Yeah, it was right before the rnc.

So it's right around then. And then it was the weird. He's weird. Remember the word that they came out? He's weird.

Weird. Weird.

Yeah.

Walls. Kamala's pick.

Yeah. He called J.D. 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.

Well, it did work, you know, because when he came out, I wrote an article for Forbes about how Tim Walls Optimized. You know the weird line because it did work because the things that were coming out of, of his mouth, but also the headlines wasn't just a deeper thing, which is just the headlines because that's all people read now or talk about on social media. It was a great quiz. It worked because it also spoke to how a lot of people were thinking. And also, Chady Vance did not have a lot to stand on in terms of background and people question his motives because he was very anti Trump and all of a sudden he's, you know, he's pro Trump. But what you're, what you're noticing correctly is that we don't see Tim Walls 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 Walls on some of the things that he said that weren't true. So I think Walls 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, did you.

See him playing Xbox with AOC 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, playing Madden and just chit chatting. It was supposed to be this event that made, you know, human eyes 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 0, 0. So I'm just like, is anything real in this world?

I know everything's a.

Well, I was just gonna say all those political events are highly staged anyway, so it wouldn't shock me if neither of them were playing.

So 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 one of the things we tell people not to do in our business, but just 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 Paranak, why don't we start with you?

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 even each, each party has in those, those key swing states, you know, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Georgia, probably maybe Arizona. And that, that'll be basically the, the, the fulcrum of where, 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, that's an educated guess. But I don't think we're going to know the outcome definitely until the next day, if you remember last time, 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 aren'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 6am 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.

Interesting analysis. Molly McPherson.

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 electrical, the, the electric, 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. But I also think part of the, the voting behind her, it's, 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, that Trump does not want to talk about. 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, you know, 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 is a, 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.

You know, it's, 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, this could be the turning point where it actually changes. So that's interesting observation. Warren, what do you think?

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, I must say. My, 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 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. I feel that people are sick of the border situation, the crime situation, the economy situation, inflation, forever wars. And I think that he has done a really good job. And again, you'd love to put him in a box and have him 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 gonna 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.

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. Like, people will believe that and they'll think that is part of it. But 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 we'll see.

We should go back to it would be 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, can you imagine like a president, President Harris with a Vice President Trump?

What a disaster.

Yeah, it would be. Oh, my goodness.

Great chat. Any parting thoughts? Any final words? Anything we haven't mentioned? It's this has been a lot of fun and predictions are always kind, messy. But hopefully we'll have a bit of a chuckle next week and hopefully everything's peaceful and it doesn't. I saw them doing Blackhawk exercises at the White House. This is all a little disconcerting.

They're going to buckle everything down so there's no chance of anything going sideways like last time.

But.

If 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 from the work that we all do, I think it just means that the idea that, oh, I have 25, 30 years of experience and I can sort of sit back and coast on what I learned, it's like, no, no. The change is accelerating. So I think it's going to be really interesting.

You got to learn how to use TikTok.

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 what the public is expecting nowadays.

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?

No, of course my website is molly mcpherson.com but across all socials. Thanks, Warren, for having me. It was so great to talk with both of you guys again.

Likewise. All the best, folks, and good luck next week.

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.

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 Elections 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 discuss 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. 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 patreon.commollymcpherson 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. And seriously, again, John, don't forget to vote.

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.