Live with Molly McPherson

So I thought I would test it, but I thought I haven't promoted this yet. So no one's going to hop on. And people hop on. This is fantastic. And Manny, I was just reading one of your replies right now. So I'm just going to do a quick live if anyone wants to chat about anything that's going on. I have my list for next week already, but I guess I could give you a little preview. I'm about to go on a run, so just stay in a quick high seat. Oh, you're going on a run, Chris? Really? Oh, I wish I could do that. Well, not so fun fact. I can't run because I think I have a mild concussion. I took a very unfortunate. I had a very unfortunate. Yeah, it is kind of a perfect morning. I was, I was shoveling this morning. I took a very. I took a hit to the head yesterday, a really bad one. So I think who. I couldn't run this morning at all. But hey, so let me just talk about four things. Did you fall as well? So let me just. So a couple things that I just, I'm looking at right now and I want your opinions on it. And then I'm going to come back tomorrow at 12pm Eastern Time. And I'm. I'm also now that substack has this. Oh, you took the dogs out. Oh, yeah, that will happen. That will happen. So a couple things I posted this morning, things that I was reading in the news because I went to bed so early last night because of my head injury. I got up very early this morning and I was reading so many news clips. I just posted something to, to, I want to post it to Instagram to TikTok. But I had noticed. Oh, I, I noticed that Erica Kirk was speaking. There's a New York Times event that. Like a New York Times event that happens every year. So she was speaking at it. She actually closed out the session and I was noting or I noticed and I don't know. And I. This is what I had just posted about it is how different she looked. Not that that's the most important thing, but it was the Dealbook summit and she was being interviewed and she was wearing like a sweater dress with like a cape. Sweater dress. Now, capes are clearly, like entranced right now. But what she was wearing was so interesting and it's so different from all the bling. So one of the. So I posted it quickly to TikTok. I didn't even put it on Instagram, but some of the comments that I got on it Because I had asked one. Let me see what some people are saying. I wanted to know what her rings were because I know they're letters, but I could never, ever figure out what they were. And someone said Dolce and Gabbana. And that can't be true, is it? Can someone confirm that for me? The rings that Erica Kirk wears, it can't be Dolce Gabbana. It can't be. Does someone want to give me your opinion on that? So that's one thing. And someone else said she's dressing to become the VP's wife. Speaking of VP's wife, we talked about this on one of our members only lives, the. Chevance, how she didn't wear her wedding ring when she was with Melania, with the troops, you know, visiting the troops. She wasn't wearing it again. It's giving. Giving Tammy Faye Baker. We already talked about that in our live. We were already all over it, man. She's in the first lady testing phase. Do you think so? Oh, she's dressing like a First Lady. Yes, she is. But did you see the report? Donald Trump said in that Cabinet meeting, I don't know how many of you, I do not know how many of you watch that Cabinet meeting live. I happen to watch it live because I was watching Greg's newscast and I kept it on. And so it had the live Cabinet. I thought, well, I've never watched a Cabinet movie before, and I'm sitting there looking, and Donald Trump was falling asleep through the whole thing, which you all know now. But I was watching that live going, am I crazy? But is he falling asleep? But also that when he was talking about Tim Walls and Kamala Harris, that he was conflating who the candidate was, but he said there's an incompetent guy versus an incompetent guy. And he met Tim Walls, the governor of Minnesota, who was the VP candidate. But he was referring to JD Vance, who was sitting across from Laura. Erica Kirk wears large gold rings and nearly every finger. Yes, she does. But she's not at the New York Times Book Summit. She's not. These rings often feature engraved or her children should never, never, ever believe what you read on TikTok GM alongside Charlie Kirk's wedding ring. Gigi and Mac. Oh, you know what? That makes sense. And deep in my hurt brain, I think I knew that a long time ago, but I didn't know that. Thank you. Okay. Oh, no, here we go. Thank you. Oh, oh, and also someone told me. Thank you. TikTok these pants. This is what so I compared what she was wearing in the New York Times during the New York Times interview compared to her interview with Megyn Kelly. Megyn Kelly who looks like now who she could star. She could be in the movie Wicked for good, if you know what I'm, if you're tracking what I'm saying there. But this, these were the pants that Erica Kirk was wearing and she had all her bling and she had all the black and everything. So she was dressing. And so I was saying in my post that she's dressing for two very different audiences. Like the Venn diagram is so narrow. These pants with Megyn Kelly. Well, actually I'll show you because I ever had the photo when I was doing the screenshot because we do things, we see this photo right here. So that's Megyn Kelly. So she has the lace pants, which, you know, it's, it's, I'm not gonna, it's not a, it's cute. Not gonna, I'm not gonna diss her taste at all. But it's a very, it's a very, very different look than that look. It's a very, very different look. It's very, very different. So she is the New York Times audience and then her Christian conservative kind of prosperity gospel esque where material wealth means divine. What's the word in my head? Divine acceptance. You know, that type of a thing. Oh hey Reets, thank you for. Oh, what did you. Oh yeah, Reets sent me a text today saying that the astronomer ad. Oh, I know what I'm going to ask you even though I'm all over. So anyone who's just joining me right now, I'm hopping on because I was just eating lunch and I got a substack note saying that they have live desktop video, which is fantastic because for my lives on substack, I always have to do it on my phone, which is crazy annoying. So I just want. So I'm just hopping on just to test it out and it seems to be going well because now I see all the, all the comments on the side there. So. Oh God, I've already lost it in my head. Oh, I know what it is. So here's my question for you. Here's my question and I want everyone to chime in if you could. I need your help. I was, I was asked recently to appear on a fairly big podcast, a video podcast, and I turned it down one just, you know. But also it's the same topic that I do every year which, which is the top kind of PR ding dong moments of the year of 2025. So I am compiling my list, but I would love to know what everyone else thinks. What I'm kind of leaning for is maybe to do more kind of like this type thing for people like on the list. So I could do, can we come up with 10 people who went up in the ratings and 10 people who went down reputation wise. So if you, does anyone have any thoughts on reputation? So, for example, and it will be, I want to say, politically agnostic, but that's hard. But for example, it's the first week of December. I would say that Pete Hegseth has had a bad 2025, even though he is the secretary of war, which that would make, hey, that's great. But he's having a rough go reputation wise, like signal gate. And now what's happening? What just came out, I posted this this morning. They are tightening the screws on Pete Hegsett. And in my email, I sent out a weekly email and I had said, oh, and in my watch list. So everyone, you know, if you're, if you're in my, if you're a subscriber, you're in the members only. I'm sending out a Monday watch list. Like, these are the stories that I'm watching this week. And the Pete Hegseth story, oh, I'm loving these answers here. The Pete Hegseth story is something that I'm watching because we all heard about the Venezuelan boats and we heard that, you know, that Pete Hegseth is like a kill order type of a guy, especially if you saw him on south park recently. So, you know, well, we don't know, but, you know, it's kind of all over it. But then Donald Trump is in a press gaggle on Sunday and that's coming out on Monday where he said, oh, yeah, you know, he's, he's like, he's defending it, like, so he's backing up Pete Hegseth but also setting up, and I could be wrong, but setting up a tripwire. So Pete Hegseth is on my list, Kate. Oh, yeah. So, okay. South Park. Okay. I'm already loving this. I'm already loving your ideas here. South park is on my list, too. Just the brand. South park, you're right. They are killing it, crushing it. Blake, blah, blah, blah. You are right. And again, I will mention this now we are doing a live. We are so busy on December 17, so you're going to have to join me all day on December 17th because we're doing a live at like 11, I think and then I'm doing a one hour session where it's, it's members only. But this is where I do because I want to do strategic comms training because not everything could be kind of headliney pop culture y but I use a case study that I'm pulling out from the news. So the case study that I'm looking at because I received the book from Simon Schuster is RFK Jr. And the reason why I'm choosing him is because he's just in a, in a, in a pinch right now. And so really the strategic theme of it sounds rfk, but if you work for someone and if you work in an industry that doesn't want to tell the truth, like right now I'm prepping because I'm going to be a moderator. Next Tuesday I'm traveling to warm weather, which is fantastic. And, and I was just, I, and I was just finalizing all my questions and how I'm going to ask it. But there were some in, in my research, this industry that I'm doing this for had a massive rep problem, you know, back like seven years ago or so. So I, you know, I want to kind of pull out these lessons. But it in, in part of the reputational blow up was because no one wants to answer anything. So rfk, you know, his wife Cheryl Hines had a book come out so she has to go out and do damage control. He's not saying anything. And then Olivia Nutzi comes out with this book and even I read the first page of the book and it's the politician and it's him talking about how they could get married. Zing. Now Olivia Nutzi is someone else. We could go like this on too. But anyway. But that training is gonna be how, what do you do when you, when you can't say the truth? I'm also gonna pull in Muckrack because I use Muckrack. But if you happen to have access to your own PR tool, media monitoring tool, if you, you know, if you work in, in comms, you can use that. But I'm gonna run kind of the numbers. And so that's on December 17th. And then that evening, Dr. Abby is going to join me at 7:00pm Eastern Time. And we're going to do a deep dive on Blake Lively. This is a long way of saying for Kate, we're doing Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Justin Baldoni, we're doing a one year roundup because it was a year ago December. And when I say there's sometimes I call things, sometimes I'm behind Things. Sometimes I don't even bother commenting on them. But if there's one thing that I called and it was a year ago and it was a Friday, and my daughter Quinn said, mom, did you know that Blake Lively filed a lawsuit? I went, what? And I stopped what I was doing. Excuse me, tell me what that is. And then I immediately went with my camera. And as Quinn was telling me that the. What the civil lawsuit was about, I went, that is a reputational move. And she brought the New York Times in. Oh, reputationally too. Like Megan Tuohy, who was part of putting out the MeToo movement and everything with Harry Harvey Weinstein. I think they New York Times and those two women lost so much legitimacy. Kate Tatiana Schlossberg is a winner. Yes. Laura Mandani appearance with Trump. Yeah, you're right. I watched Mandani with Heather Cox. Richardson popped up at lunch again. They did a live together. Smart Manny. Jimmy Kimmel. Not only Jimmy Kimmel. Coming out of. That's a great one. Coming out of the head. Coming out of what happened with. With Trump and being canceled when his band leader died. And he came out emotional like that. It really showed him in the right place. American Eagle. Oh, Dory. American Eagle. Sydney Sweeney. Gosh, I don't know. I don't know. We could have our opinion, but I think I'm gonna have to run numbers on all of it. That's what. That's what I'm going to do. I'll run the numbers because American Eagle, the press that they got off of, that was incredible. Was incredible. So. And. And the numbers. I got to run the numbers on it for American Eagle. I got to do this. But. And Sydney Sweeney got a lot of mentions because. And that happened in August. It did. Because I counted the days because I was getting press calls. That story was a two week. I appeared on CNN live on day 14 of that story, which is incredible. So great one. That's a really good one. So Sydney Sweeney, though, a lot of name recognition, but I bet if I look at the numbers, it's going to be negative. So thank you. How can I save this list? Any other. Where do we put Erica Kirk? We got to put her like reputation, because again, this won't be personal opinion, but like reputation. We got to put in a right. Am I crazy? Does anyone else gap as in the. Did they. Did they do better? Kate with CrowdStrike. Oh, my gosh, Kate. When did that happen? That was the worst travel experience in my life. CrowdStrike ATL for me. Wow. So Kate Just the fact that you remember Crowdstrike, does that mean that you were traveling when that happened? Because otherwise, would anyone remember that? Oh, Costco. You're going to say up, right? Man, you're going to say up because it seems like Costco is everywhere. Kate. No, Crowdstrike only happened in July. Is that. That can't be. That can't be. Was it. No. It feels like it was a year ago. No, because Biden was president. CrowdStrike outage. 2024. Oh, July 2024. I need 2025, but thank you. Oh, God. But no, thank you for reminding me of it. God, that's sucked. That was the worst. But hey, you know what? We all get a blur. And the only reason why I remember it's because it's 24. Is because Biden was president. That's. That's the only reason why I remember it. You could have convinced me right now that it happened in July. Target. Yeah, Target has lost. The bloom is off the road for target. You're 100% right. So, anyone else want to share? Winner, loser, reputation for 2025. And what always happens with these lists? What always happens with these lists? People want to remember the last two months, the last three months. So. But the beauty for me is this is a lease. A list that I can go back to because I have it on social media. That's the nice thing about it because I can just go back to all my posts and I can just look and see all the things that I talked about. Megan Markle. Let me see. I'm looking at Gwenneth Paltrow. Paltrow. Oh, oh, actually, Andrew Mountbatten Windsor and nod for you. We're calling him by his. His accurate name. Travis and Taylor. You're right. Right. We have. We have to give them that. We have to. We could say all the officials involved in the Texas officials with the flooding with Camp Mystic. They were all on vacation and nobody responded to anything. I'm looking at that. Coming up. Tyler Perry. Who else? Karen Reed Musk. I'm looking at the people who I talk about. Sean Combs. Oh, my hair was very short. Wow. My hair was very short. Bill Belichick. Ptag, Seth. That's March Poppy founder. Oh, the whole Poppy thing. Andrew Cuomo. Oh, that's a great one. That's a great one. I was listening to my Greg because he's all tied into New York politics, but I was listening to a podcast from Andrew Cuomo's press guy and the spinning. If a podcast could be an inanimate object. It would be a yo. Yo. Spinning. Yeah. Andrew Cuomo. Oh, here's. Yeah. The Blake Lively. Talking about Blake Lively. Any. Any other choice? Any other. Oh, so there's my year in review that I did in December. So I did that last year. Who else do we have? Liam Payne. Oh, Liam Payne. Garth brooks. Oh, that's 2024, loser. Massa police. Oh, okay. That's so funny that you said that because I was looking at Karen Reed and I thought, do we count Karen Reed? Proctor. Great. What is that? Michael Proctor? You're right. Maybe too local. I don't know. I don't know. Karen Reed is awfully universal. Awfully universal. Oh, my gosh. This. Can I save this list? Will that allow me? I. I guess it does. I guess I can do a quick copy and paste you guys. I really, really appreciate it. Okay, so. But I made a list this morning. Oh, I gotta. Let me do something new. Sorry to guys to do this to you. Of things I was looking at today and one thing I'd mentioned that Newark in New Jersey was named the worst airport. That was one two was Pete Hegseth putting the screws of. Ha. There's a massive cheese recall from a company and if you want to Google it, the amount of brands that they had in there were. It was enormous. And Michael dell with his six point whatever $4 billion donation to all these kind of Trump causes. His wife Susan, I wrote his gain 6.25 opinions on her mega makeover. So bad. So bad. All right, you guys. O. Kristen Chenoweth. I love that. Gavin Newsome. Where do we put him? You know, he definitely put himself in the spotlight, didn't he? Like, I'd give him a thumbs up, but he's almost like too political. I almost feel like I can't use. I'm not going to use Trump or Democratic candidates. I think because then it's just too. Then it's political. Right. We need to be as agnostic as possible. But cabinet members and other politicians like Tim Walls. Actually, I'll put him on the list. He's getting hit right now. The bear cup. Kate. I don't know what that is. Starbucks bear cup. Starbucks had a couple glitches this year. I don't remember the bear Cup. I don't think I know bear cup. Joy Ann Reid firing first big firing in the media purges. Free to now speak her mind Post network cable news. I do remember that. I remember the big firing, but I think for Joy's sake, it needed to be bigger. You know what I mean, like, for people to feel it. Sydney Sweeney, Big loser. Beyonce and Jay Z. Huh? Going back in time. I'm going to put the thumbs up on them. That's a good one, actually. I got to add this. I got to add Beyonce in there. And here's the reason why, because do you remember when Jay Z was involved in all those. The whole Diddy thing, and he just. He just. He just skated right by. I can't go too deep into it because I had a. I had a. I'm a little close client wise, so I can't talk too much on it, but that's a good one. Those two. Those two dodged it. Those two dodged the Diddy bullet. Oh, Blue Origin. Oh, thank you. Oh, that's such a good one. We'll just call it every single person on that rocket. Can we even call it a rocket ship? It's like a bus. Oh, my God, that is so good. And then Beyonce did the halftime show. I think Beyonce's a good one. I'm going to tell you. I think that's a good one. Beyonce is a developing story. Interesting. Oh, Kate. Kellogg's for dinner. But that's not 25. It's not 25. And here's the reason why. I filmed a post about it in the. In. I was driving in New York and I was at a Starbucks parking lot in Littleton. And when I filmed it, and I don't think that was 25. Campbell's soup. Oh, God, you guys are great. Bezos wedding. I don't even know what to say about that. Oh, did you mean Campbell's soup and not Kellogg's? Yeah, I think Kellogg's was 24. But Campbell's Soup is. Kellogg's cereal ran so Campbell Soup could walk. That's a good one. You hit your head this week, too. No, it's. Hey, they all. There's so many things. Drake. Oh, Drake. Drake. You guys are so good. Kendrick Lamar. That is so good. He crawled into obscurity and you are bringing that back from February, first week of February. I love it. Oh, sorry, Mel Robbins. I don't even. God, I. I am. Oh, we're gonna do a Mel Robbins. We are doing. This is a members only vault. What's set in the vault? In the vault. We are doing a Mel Robbins deep dive so I can rant. It's going to be members only. Kind of stays in the vault. But I have been holding on to Mel Robbins for ages. But I. I don't want to go public because I don't want to look like that type of woman who wears these glasses and just. And goes after someone who. Who's kind of in the same area, if you will. I mean, geographically. Even though now shows in Vermont. But I am so over. I'm not. I mean, I haven't even been. Wait, over. Mel Robbins. Can't be under Mel Robbins. Under her spell, I guess. I was in Barnes and Noble the other day buying books, and just to see her. Her bullshit up in the front, it makes me insane. She is the worst. Mel Robbins vault is necessary. Yes, I know. But thank you, Ashley, for bringing it up. We are going to do a whole section on Mel Robbins. I guess we have to put her in there. Maybe I should do like a special category for. Even though. Even though the reputation. Even though the sentiment elsewhere says it's positive, this is who I say is negative. I might have to do that. Okay, how about the comment? That may not be a comment. I can't remember the name. I don't know that. I don't know that one. What's the comment? Okay, you guys. Okay, I have two more minutes. You guys. Who. Anyone else? Anyone else want to add anything? I cannot thank you guys enough for this list. Who. Wait, who did the. You added Bezos. Did. Did I get Bezos? Yeah. Oh, my God. Such a good list. You went back to Drake because we went back to the. You went back to winter. Early winter. Oh, it's going to be bad. I think I might put. I think I'm going to put Susan Dell in there. I don't want to. I don't want to talk about any woman's appearance. But that's just. That's just an example where a $6 billion donation got overshadowed by a mega makeover. Maybe Mega makeovers. That's what I'll do. I won't say Susan Dell. Also say mega makeovers. And I'm going to put it in my big list. Oh, Patti LuPone. Mary love that. See these? This is what I need. God, I love Patti LuPone. Do you remember her in. Life Goes On? Remember Life Goes On. Oh, yeah. We got Kendrick Lamar. Oh, yeah. So I guess we could do this. We could do Kendrick with Drake. Like that. I like it. I like it. I like it. You guys are the best. Okay, I'm gonna let you guys carry on with your day. I just wanted to try the desktop version of Substack. I am so happy they have this. And yeah, Taylor Swift, even though I'm a little bit over it. I'm sorry. But yeah, Taylor and Travis and then maybe we'll do, like, our number one. Who we think is number one. We'll put it out there. Kate, I'm glad this was a great break in your day. It was mine, too, because I'm so deep in the work right now, and I kind of needed this. This respite, and you guys totally made this cool. So thank you so much. I really appreciate your help in this list. It's amazing. Oh, you know what we should do? No, I won't. I won't do it. Okay. I won't do it this week. I'm going to do it next. Oh, God. Let me do it real quick, make sure you guys are here, and I'll tell you about it. The 12th, next Friday, December 12th at noon, we are going to do our top list. I'm going to reveal. Works great. Better than the phone. I totally agree. I'm going to reveal my top. Should we do 12 days? Should we do 12? No, that's Christmas. We got. Okay, I'm going to do my top and so the PR hits and misses for the year, and we're going to do it on December 12, 12. Okay, you guys are going. I'm going to give out my list, and then you guys are going to give me your list. Okay? You guys are the best. All right, everyone, 12 days of reputation. I'm going to play around with this. I'm. I'm going to play around with this because do we want to do 12 days? I could do 12 different posts, right? I could do that, and I'll kick it off next Friday. It's a great idea. That's a good idea. All right, you guys, thank you so much for joining me. This was so much fun jumping in like this. I think I'll do another post where I'll ask people. I think I'll do a note and I'll ask people, but you guys are the best. All right, everybody, have a great day, and we'll see you soon. So I hope you can join me this Friday, tomorrow, 12:00pm Eastern Time, where we will continue our list on the desktop. Bye for now. We are gonna do one up, one down. 12 days of reputation by.