PR Breakdown with Molly McPherson

Foreign. Hey there. Let me get. Hey, everyone. Gonna get all my people. So we are streaming across multiple platforms right now. It is Friday. It is a PR breakdown live. Just want to make sure we're here. Oh, next week. So we have two people here. Is it on substack? Deanna, Are we on substack? Sorry, everyone. All right. Okay. I gotta open up my substack, though. I'm not seeing it on substack. I'm just sitting here in a daze. Sorry. Says I'm live on all channels. Okay. I have to find. Okay. I am on substack. I just don't see where I'm at. Sub stack. All right, everyone. Hello. Welcome to this week's PR breakdown. There we go. There we go. Here we go. Now. Now I see everyone. Okay, I just want to make sure. Hello. Hello to my favorites, to my. To my community, to our vault. Here we are. It is January 16th. We did not highlight a topic for the week because how can you possibly have one topic? How can we possibly have one topic? It's complete insanity right now. All right, good. Okay, everybody's here. Fantastic. All right, so this is what I thought we would do for this week. It's Friday, January 16th. So long week, right, everyone? So I have a couple stories that I have been following this week or has been that have popped up in the news this week. And I want to talk about it not just from the story point of view, but we all like. Like, what do we like doing here at the PR Breakdown? We like breaking down stories, but we also like to break down what's going on behind the stories. And I keep doing this with my hair because I look like my mother right now. And since I know she doesn't watch any of my stuff, she won't be offended by that. I love seeing the story be inside the story. This morning, I was reading a transcript client work from a meeting that happened where someone was giving a good review. Like, oh, no, it was. It was pretty good. It went well. And I read it and I went. I felt like 100 things like, these are problems. So I want to continue doing that. So I picked. I highlighted a couple stories this week, and I want you guys to tell me other stories as well. We have a lot of new revelations coming out of Minneapolis. I know it's so hard. Like, we don't want to talk about Minneapolis because it really is hard. In honor of Minneapolis, in honor of my home, My home area. I'm actually from St. Paul, but still the Twin Cities. It's all kind of one I. And I ran this morning to Prince. I don't know, it was just calling me, just calling me. I had to do that. But let's. So I want to highlight an article about Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent, which I found something interesting there, A couple interesting things there. Report came out about 911 and then I have to talk about Timothy and then we can talk about anything else that you want. Now, do people care about Timothy Busfield? Not necessarily. I mean, maybe people maybe closer to my age might find Timothy Busfield of interest. And it's not even so much that it's an actor who's being nabbed for something, but it's how he responded to it. I did. It's been like a crazy busy week work wise for me. Like I'm in, in the thick of a lot of crises right now. So I, I am in super spotter mode of looking for things that just don't feel right or sound right to me. And when the Timothy Busby story kind of came across the trans. My hair is so distractingly bad right now, I thought I. It's, it's a, it's a, it's a celebrity case. It's. I guess I have to touch it. It's a celebrity case. It's legal. So I was just waiting for the deflection and sure enough it was there. So I did two posts about it. I really wanted to go harder and say, oh my God, this guy's guilty. But you can't do that, right? Innocent until proven guilty. And I also know too like Melissa Gilbert, Half Pint sitting online right now, looking, reading absolutely everything that she can about this. So I thought, would that be interesting if Half Pint like red or my piece about her husband. All right, so couple things, so let's jump into it. One article. Did anybody see the article? Oops, I got to go back to my weekly content here. Did anybody read the article this morning? New York Times agent who shot Renee Good was trained to track and apprehend fugitives. Has anyone see it? Oh, Danielle, you didn't get an email reminder today about the, about the live. Oh, okay. Dan will check into that. We have, we're updating our, our process here so with the, with the team. So you'll, you'll notice some changes that are coming and some that we're lacking. So thank you for sharing that with me. But yeah, we're here usually every Friday. I'm, I have some travel coming up, so some of the times may change. One of the travels Greg's Coming with me. So we're going to get a news slash pricing management from the same sub stack. So he doesn't know yet, but he's going to join me when we're in California for one of those. And I want some other things coming up as well. But yeah, we're usually here once a week so just you can look at it on substack. But it's also in my weekly emails as well. But we will definitely try to do that. Okay, so what is so interesting to me about this, this story? So let me go to it. So. Well, first of all, let's go to 911 calls. So if you read any of the stories that came up about the 911 calls, they it you can tell that it was too many screens open right now. It was absolutely chaotic. It was absolutely chaotic. So many people were calling in the street. So many people even, you know, someone was calling on behalf of. Someone was calling on behalf of the ICE agents. It was chaos. So to my notes about Renee good here. So when we look at, here's the highlight that I see from the story of Renee go down to Minneapolis. Like just I want to highlight like on, on the, the people of Minneapolis. So much of the Minneapolis I story is about the people of the Twin Cities, specifically like Minneapolis and what they're doing. This is what it looks like when, when constituents or stakeholders notice that something is, is just fishy or not, right. And they start to, there's collective action. And if I could summarize my role as what I do, crisis manager or what I specialize in, it's collective action. People call me when there's collective action there and in this. And that's what's happening in Minneapolis. So what's interesting on this story. Okay, let's see. I'm going to call it when the public becomes the first responder. Okay. So all of these 911 calls come in when they see, when they talk about the shooting. So they have multiple 911 calls. All these 911 calls, like a lot of the callers, they describe the shooting clearly. Like they know exactly. It's, it's almost like the level of all the video going on. Like think about George Floyd in Minneapolis, blocks away. We had one video. We had one video, George Floyd with Renee Good. We have multiple videos, multiple videos. And now that we have 911 records, we even have the audio, the audio calls for it as well. They immediately identify the ICE shooter. Immediately know who it is. Begging, begging, begging for medical help, everybody begging. And then the police are there, the Minneapolis police chief. And by the way, probably the article or the podcast, you did not hear this week is Chief o' Hara on the Daily, the New York Times Daily. I was listening to it this week, maybe on Monday. I was listening to it. I, I think it comes out. I thought this is probably the best interview I have heard from a leader. It's. It's remarkable. And as a matter of fact, our monthly training for substack or vault training, every month, I do like a strategic comms training. I'm going to start it with that. It's. It's going to be the language of leadership. Oh, so Carrie, you heard it. O' Hara was incredible. I, I mean, how he sat down and there's still like coming out of Minneapolis, we have, you know, Jacob Fry, the mayor, Tim Walls, they're all playing different roles. But then Chief o' Hara comes in and he's both of them. He drops the F bomb in the interview. But he's also very calm and measured in speaking from an institutional point of view. It is quite the triumvirate in Minneapolis, in Minnesota right now. It's incredible what's happening from a leadership perspective. So our, our next, our next session is going to be February 17th. I think it's a Tuesday at 12pm EAS. So for members of the sub stack, that's the leadership that we're going to do is just like the language of leadership. And when we don't see leadership as well. Okay, so back to these 911 calls. We also have in the 911 calls, when I was reading the articles and there's multiple articles, they're all coming out today how much it's not just the truth, but it's the emotional truth that comes out. Like you can hear, like they're saying the public is speaking with panic, but also urgency. They're saying, we need, we see blood. She needs cpr. We need ambulance. We need ambulance. And that ambulance was blocked. The ambulance got there real quick, but it was blocked. So from these 911 calls, it affirms really what people already think. It's that ICE is a destabilizing presence. It's not stabilizing at all. People were saying, we need crowd control, the crowd and the police. The crowd's getting hostile. The feds need to leave the scene. As soon as ICE left, the crowd left. So the de escalation only happened after the ICE officials, and I think there's some FBI that were there too, is when they left. And the reason why The Minneapolis narrative is working is because. And this is Tim Walls. What Tim Walls is saying. This is the opposite of how authority is supposed to work. It is the opposite. Law enforcement is supposed to bring authority carousine. I couldn't help but love when Michael Barbaro asked what he thought when he saw the video, and he said, oh, I care. I completely support that. When you said that I don't even have the words, I thought, yes, well, you know, again, do we want f. F bombs in media statements and interviews? No. But do they work? Yeah, in this case, yeah. I mean, really, I thought it was one of the best interviews I've ever heard. So I. And it's. It got lost. So I'm titling this like the best interview you never. That you never heard. So now what we have for Minneapolis. So this is going to sear into our minds, but we have video and we have transcripts. Like, compare that to George Floyd. George Floyd. When you think of the footage you just saw, the footage of the protests and the burning and the chaos, but now it's like that. That street in Minneapolis. It's the audio. It's a 91 1. It's all the videos. It's all the angles and the narratives and what the White House is trying. The narrative doesn't work. It doesn't work, and I don't care. This is. You don't even have to look at this from an ideological point of view. The narrative does not work. It doesn't. It doesn't work. You don't have to be a Democrat to see that. And if you're a Republican, I would hope that you would see that, too. And for the Minneapolis police, and this is Chief o', Hara, the Minneapolis police is dealing with someone else's crisis. ICE handed their crisis over to the Minneapolis police. So for o', Hara, who originally is from. He's a New York guy. He's a New York City guy, so. And o', Hara, you know, he's very. I mean, that's straight out of Central casket, isn't it? When you have the Irish crop cop. And then you add a little bit of the wig on cheap Wiggum. Yeah. So o' Hara is a little bit typecast, but why? He's not typecast for 2026. He's law enforcement, but he's rational, calm law enforcement. It's incredible. So it was a shooting they did not initiate. It was federal agents. They don't command. And it was a crowd reacting to federal force in the area. So I think the connective Tissue in these stories now coming about the 911 calls. It's what happens when civilians and cell phones and local governance collides with this federal presence. Oh, God. Presence is so calm. Even call it. Oh, good. Cara. Yeah. Please do bring attention to the interview. Agree. No one seems to have heard. It gives so much context. I, it really does. I'm gonna push it. I may even, that might even be my podcast for next week, but we are going to highlight it in our monthly training here. So if you want to be a part of that. But I encourage you to listen to the Daily this week. But it really explains the mindset and what is happening with the fallout and now the reaction to what the Web. So to what the White House always does, what Trump always does in these cases when he's losing, when they lose the narrative, they go hard. And that's why pushing hard with martial law, pushing hard. We're going to put the midterms aside. It feels differently, doesn't it? Do you? Is it just me? Oh, Harris. Oh, he's from Newark. I thought in the interview he said he was from New York or that he maybe. Did he work in New York? You know best. Obviously, you're sitting there looking. So thank you for correcting that. Let's call him an east coast guy. How about that? Well, New York or Newark, you know, he, he's, he's, he's accustomed to urban settings, so he's, he's clearly the guy for this job. So, so I think what we like a takeaway just even from hearing these 911 calls. This was not just a shooting. This was not just a shooting. And what, what they said in those and then in the articles as well, it was two, two shots to the forearm, one shot to the chest. I could have that wrong. And then they only said a possible fourth shot to the head. I don't know if that's been confirmed or not, but if you watch the video, and I know the New York Times has this video out of seeing her in that seat. It's just awful. But it's so much more than a shooting. The White House, the administration, wants to make it about a domestic terrorist who deserved to be shot. But what it is, it's a breakdown in authority, legitimacy and trust. And it was captured minute by minute by people in Minneapolis who are never supposed to be narrators. They're not. And you know, a term, citizen journalism is a kind of a throwback term. We don't hear about it as much. And that's what I think is really happening right now is they're technically not journalists because they don't follow codes of journalism and journalism ethics. But it's like citizens are creating a new form of journalism where it's on the street. It's on the street reporting play by play, minute by minute reporting with a demand for accountability. It's like accountability journalism. It's pretty damn remarkable. It's pretty damn remarkable. Now, I want to move on over to this article that I read this morning, which I'm. Jonathan Ross fascinates me. And not, not in a good way and not in a good way at all. But you know, when, when the piece came out. So I, I did a post about this, about the video last Friday, as a matter of fact, because I remember talking about the Friday news dump and I asked like, was this a White House Friday news dump when, when the video from Jonathan Ross was released? Well, it wasn't released by the White House. It was. But, but why that confused me is because I could tell that it was released to support the narrative of Jonathan Ross and what Jonathan, How Jonathan Ross reacted. ICE was heavy during the Obama administration, but I don't recall the same sentiment from the left. We're going to talk about this in a minute. Okay, I, I like your statement, your comment here, because I have some numbers here to discuss that. We're actually going to go a couple steps back to Bush, but it's all the same. So it's, it's a good point. We've always had ICE around, right? We've always had customs around. I, I know ICE agents. I've known ICE agents for years. That's not, that's not what's going down here. Right? It's not what's going down here. It's a, it's a whole different type of something else that's, that's happening entirely. So let's look at now a secondary piece of it. I gotta close on my. I have way too many windows open. Way too many windows. Gotta go back to my notes. Okay. Okay. So this is the article that was in the New York Times, and it's from. Okay, I, I think I can. You know what? I can't share this on substack. Oh, hold on. Okay, let me see. I don't know if I can share this on substack, but I'll share it on YouTube. Right here. Did I share it? Yeah. So it's right here. The agent. Who? The. The agent. Oh, you can't see that. Anyway, it's too small anyway. But it's the agent. Here it is, Agent who shot Renee Good was trained to track and apprehend fugitives. So that headline drew me in immediately when I saw that. Because we all know, we all know what he said at the end of that video. So let me. So the video that was released last Friday, it was from a site, oh my gosh. I think it's called Alpha News. I think that's what it is. And I first found out about Alpha News like that morning, I think when I was doing my research. And the guy who runs that website, it's conservative, he was trying to book a room at a local Hampton Inn in Minneapolis. So it may have been Bloomington or Bloomington, Minnesota, which is right outside. It's kind of right next to the airport, right outside Minneapolis there. But it was, it was hotel who refused to rent rooms to ice agents. And so he walks in and asks this poor kid working the overnight desk. And the poor kid's just looking at, you know, what he's being told to do now. It became a bigger problem because I think it was Hampton Inn and then became a bigger problem for Hilton or was it Hyatt? Oops, sorry, but it's either Hyatt or Hilton. And then they get involved now with, with many, many hotels. Hotels are just franchises. They're, they're not owned and operated many times by the ownership, so it's a franchise. So the owner of that hotel can do whatever they want to do. They, they, and that particular owner of that hotel said no ice agents at all. And so he tried to expose this hotel and then it was, it was, oh my gosh, this, this content creator came in and you know, wanted to highlight how, how bad that it was. And then it had to, and then the, the corporate office had to get into it and so it became a problem. So anyway, where am I going with this? Okay, but, but so Jonathan Ross, which I found out in this article, I did not know he's from Minnesota. I, I, I, I thought I read somewhere that he, that he traveled. He's from Chaska, Minnesota. Chasa is 30 miles out, maybe from the Twin Cities. It's a Minneapolis suburb, but a little rural esque, definitely. But Jonathan Ross was in, was in Iraq. And that is kind of the point that the story so written by Katie J M Baker. And this is what I have learned from this story. So, so what she's doing. So she's, she's kind of zooming out from the shooting itself and wants to look at less about him though I would love to do a deep dive on him. And if you want to get into deep dives on him, go to, go to Reddit because there are some funky accusations about him on Reddit, that is for sure. But, but what she's talking about is this whole kind of mindset and if you know, if anybody know those people and I'm going to label mostly guys, law enforcement guys, former military or military guys, if you know the type. Not all, not all, not all. And we just talked about o' Hara in his interview with Michael Baro. He was not showing it, but they're just that law enforcement kind of attitude. Right. And, and so you think that that kind of bleeds into it. So Jonathan Ross, he was a gunner in the Iraq war, which means he was enlisted. He did not see, according to this article, he did not see any conflict at all. And he was also, let's see, so he, he's from Indiana. And I don't know if you saw this stuff online too, that his, that the town that they're from in Indiana, highly racial town. Like I, I don't even want to say it, but I actually saw this content creator talk about the town. He's actually from the next town over. He may have been from this town, but where the, the high school mascot for decades and only changed I think in the 80s was, was racist slang for Asians. Like that was there, that was their what are you mascot? Awful. Anyway, but he went to, he deployed with the National Guard and, and he was, he was in the National Guard. He didn't see conflict. But what he was in like a military mindset. Especially if you're in Iraq, you have a military mindset, you have a chain of command mindset. But also if it's Iraq and the culture that's there, it's kill. You know, we're here to invade. I mean, we're here to attack. We're not, we're not here to carry out ICE operations. It's very, very different. So now 20 years after he was in Iraq, Jonathan Ross is now an ICE agent. And I think where, where we have this breakdown. It's not Obama administration ICE agent. It's not Bush administration ICE agent where a lot of this started. It's Trump's ICE agent, which is entirely different. And pardon me, like, you can't label like, like sometimes like there's some ICE agents out there who career. They've been there doing it forever. It sounds like it's miserable work, you know, like it's absolutely, oh, you lived in Indiana and Anderson, Anderson University in Indiana. I, oh, I, oh, the town was Pekin, Peking, I think P E K I N G maybe, but where am I going? Let me, I want to look on here. So when you put a Jonathan Ross in a town like that, President Trump is saying that he's acting in self defense. And if you saw the video as well of him, apparently they were trying to arrest a Guatemalan who was accused of some sexual crime or something. And that's the video where Jonathan Ross is in the car and the car takes off with him, which he did. And then JD Vance gets up and this is how JD Vance doxed Jonathan Ross. He doxed him when he was standing at that briefing when Carolyn Levitt introduced him on there. Because they just said, everybody just went, wait a minute. Because as J.D. vance was lambasting the journalists there, people just started Googling like, oh, he was already involved in an altercation where he was dragged, oh, there it is, Jonathan Ross. And then the Internet does what the Internet does. They go on, they go online and start looking and they go to Reddit and go. And then they have. And they find other things about Jonathan Ross Ross. Google it anyway. But they want to paint him that he's someone who acted in self defense. They said there are two reports they had internal bleeding. CBS News was one of the media outlets to report like everybody saw him walking down the street. Everybody saw him walking down the street. But so he, okay, so he graduated high school. Here you go. Louise, Peoria, Illinois and then that was in 2002. Oh my gosh. Young served as a gunner in convoys in a logistics unit. So his record suggests no combat whatsoever. He got married right before he deployed. And then when he returned from Iraq, he had filed for divorce. And according to records, the couple had no children or real estate to divide. But the final decree simply required his ex wife to return the engagement ring and pay her $3,000. Then he spent two years in college, probably on the GI bill. Then he graduated 2007 with a degree in business and psychology. And then he joined the National Guard, left to the Indiana National Guard to join the U.S. border Patrol, El Paso, Texas. So he joined the agency at another time when Republicans were racing to meet mandates. This was a Bush mandate. So a lot of military gets swallowed up there. And I will say the ICE agents that I know, former military, they're all former military. So a lot of veterans join there. When you have veterans doing law enforcement, it is a different mindset. It definitely is. There is use of force policies for ice and it is now A problem. So there was a report in 2013, American Immigration Council report on the use of force policies in ICE found organizational subculture that fostered a systemic problem of a mistreatment of migrants while in custody. This was in 2013. In a statement, U.S. customs Border Protection said it has always prided itself in the training of its officers and agents, and at no point has the integrity or quality of the training been compromised. What? Okay, Herb, Herb wants to make it very clear that he is not a Hoosier, that he's from Illinois and not Indiana. Okay, we are making that clear to you. All right. But what we have here, if you connect the dot and so much of it, is the psychology of it, which is what I do in my work all the time. I am always looking for the psychology when I work with clients. We are looking at, yeah, strategy and what's the problem, and let's do mapping and let's do research, and everybody is looking at all the issues and who said what, whatever. And I'm just looking at the psychological background on this, and that's what we're doing right now. So in 2015, he married again. His wife was from the Philippines, I believe that's according to Reddit, but there are photos of there. But here we go. I'm going to pull from the article. You guys tell me what you think here. So in 2015, married again, took a job with ICE in Minnesota. That year, Mr. Ross bought a large home near the end of a quiet cul de sac in Chaska, a city about 30. Oh, okay. All right. 30 minutes. Got that right. 30 minutes southwest of where the shooting took place in Minneapolis. One neighbor who declined to give his name out of fear of retribution. Not surprised. That was around Abu Gharab, right? I think during that time. Yeah. Oh, my gosh, Lauren, thank you for that. Remember that? Remember that? Oh, my gosh. What was the woman's name? Lynn. Christie was Lynn. Lynn. With the. With the leash. With the leash and what they did. Oh, yeah. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, that's that. That's what swallowed Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon. Was that when that. When that happened? Yeah. Good callback, Good call back. Lauren said, okay, so this is. Neighbor said that the house had signage supporting Trump around the presidential election and that a Don't Tread on Me flag had waved from the front porch. He said he had seen children playing on the front lawn. As a team leader for ice enforcement removal operations in St Paul, Mr. Ross focused on fugitive operations to track and apprehend higher value targets. So Anyway, so we'll see what happens to him. June 2025, Mr. Ross led a multi agency team. Like do you like. I don't know if you're like me, but do you know Jonathan Ross without knowing Jonathan Ross? How many of you know Jonathan Ross? I know so many Jonathan Ross. I know so many of them. So June 25, he leads the multi agency team to arrest. Oh, here we go. A Guatemalan man who had been convicted of sexual abuse in Minnesota. After pursuit the driver, I refused to exit his vehicle, prompting Mr. Ross to shatter a window. And, and then he was dragged 100 yards at high speeds after reaching into the man's car. So yeah, so they're doing the job of nabbing the squad of melon Guatemalan man who was convicted of a crime. So okay, all right, we're with you. But then it's the smashing of the window, the grabbing and people reactively. I mean that's not what ICE agents are supposed to do. And so Mr. Ross later testified that he feared for his life during the incident and suffered a severe forearm gash that required 33 stretches across his face and limbs. You support experts told the Times that by reaching into the vehicle, Mr. Ross had disregarded standard law enforcement training. There you go. And last month the jury convicted Mr. Munoz Guatemala. Oh, that's his name. Of assaulting Mr. Roth. Okay, right here at the end of the story. Let me. So let's do the statement and then the end of the story. This is Trisha McLaughlin and every time I hear Trisha McLaughlin speak and it's funny, like I see her name. She's a spokeswoman. I think she's at dhs. Whenever I see her name, I think she's someone who I'd be friends with because I have friends who all have names like that. And every see I go, oh, because I have friends who are Trisha's and I have a Glock. But then now every time I see, every time there's a quote, statement from Church McLaughlin, quote, the officer was in fear of his own life, the lives of his fellow officers and acted in self defense. She said ICE officers are trained to use, quote, minimum amount of force necessary to resolve dangerous situations. And that the agency prioritizes public and officers through de escalation tactics and regular ongoing use of. Ongoing use of force training, the deescalating track. So you. Or tactics. So you see that coming out of the dhs. He shot her. He shot Renee good. Three times, maybe four times. And then here's the last piece on footage from Mr. Ross cell phone. So this is what was leaked. So it was not leaked by the White House, was leaked by this Alpha News and this Alpha News guy. Like I said, the last time I saw him is when he was going into hotels and asking poor part time workers at his desk working the overnight shift if vice agents can stay there. And then he films them and turns it into conservative content. The video was leaked to him. So it was inside ICE and they thought, okay, well we have to show the narrative. This is why it's such stupid thinking again, how anyone could see that. And it's not just the footage that was sent. Like, okay, you're showing a. But I don't care how many angles you look at that. The footage of Rene. Good. I don't care how many angles you look at it. The tires are going this close way. And Jonathan Ross is this. It's what he says at the end where he is muttering effing. And he did not say effing. And that was included in the video. What more do you need to say from that? What more do you need to say from that? So the, so the big question is there, right, is what's going to come from the White House more? So I don't think the White House is going to do a lot more messaging around Jonathan Ross because they're so outnumbered in this. So now we're just going to see what do we see on the White House. We're going to say diversionary tactics. We're going to see things leading into the midterms, trying to make them null and void. It's crazy. But people, people in our community here, we know what to spot. We know what to spot. For example, I'm going to take a hard left here, very hard left. And a story that I Talked about on TikTok last week. And I know most people. Can someone just tell me on the chat, does anybody care about Timothy Busfield? Can somebody tell me on the chat if they even care about them at all? It's okay if you say no, by the way. It is okay if you say no, if you do not care about Timothy Busfield. But the fact is. Good. Okay, we got a couple people. Thank you. The thing about Timothy Busfield, when I saw that story. Am I a huge Timothy Busfield fan? No. But does Timothy Busfield inhabit entertainment that I like? Yes. I mean, Revenge of the Nerds, he was, he was a nerd in that 30 something. Of course, though, I was, I was not 30 something when that came out. It was not my, my genre. I remember watching it, but I can't tell you anything about it. He cheated in it. Right. I feel like I remember his wife being cheated on. Or did she cheat, but she's actually in real life, the wife, of course, on Instagram this week, crying over all this. Not Timothy Busfield, but what happened in Minneapolis. But of course, Danny Cannon in the West Wing. He was also in Studio city. There's Studio 60. Is that it? Yeah. So Timothy Busfield, I mean, we have Timothy Busfield, and then it also brings in. Yeah, Half Pint, Melissa Gilbert. She used to be the president of Stag. And I had to dive on this a little. You know, if you think about it, Timothy Busfield and Melissa Gilbert do not have a lot of money. They can't have a lot of money because Melissa Gilbert, who was a child star, you know, she wasn't making a ton of money back then. You know, people were. They didn't have contracts like they used to. Michael Landon made a lot of money, but not. Not Half Pint. And she really hasn't acted that much. So, you know, and as I was reading articles about that, because I kind of. All this comes into play and Timothy Busfield as well, because you have to look, you know, you look at the work that they've done, work that they've pitched, and. And I'm doing an interview next week with the BBC about Liam Neeson. Liam Neeson did a video. I'll come back. I will definitely come back to Busfield for a moment here, but Liam Neeson, I don't know if anyone saw this story, but Liam Neeson narrated an anti vax video and the BBC wants to interview me about it for their podcast next week. And I thought my first reaction was, what? Like, I totally missed that. I mean, did anyone know that Liam Neeson was involved in this? So the trades picked it up. Like Variety and Deadline, they picked it up, but mainstream missed it. Very congested news cycle in December. But also, which I pointed out, this is going to be my interview as well. I'll mention this as a. As a sound bite if I can. Liam Neeson, every 12 months becomes incredibly beloved. Why is Liam. Tell me this. And does this matter in crisis management? Yes, it does. Why does anyone want to tell me why liam Neeson Every 12 months becomes beloved and why this might play into it? Because what challenges it for Liam Neeson, too? He's a big part of unicef. He's a very pro vaccine guy. He's a pro vaccine guy. Is that true, Danielle? Pam Anderson is anti vax oh, no. You're asking. I don't know, but that seems off brand. I know those two were. But Liam Neeson is not anti vax. Or at least everything that he has said, including his statement, the only reason any of us knew our grandparents or great grandparents is because of vaccinations. Well said. Well said. But, yeah, but he did this, narrated this video. And the video is like crazy RFK Jr. And I really don't have a lot of time for media interviews of late. I've been turning a lot of them down. But this one, I said, yeah, I'm gonna do this one because it is the BBC and my boy Connor is over, is studying abroad over there. So I said, I'll, I'll just do it for that since he's in the uk. But it's an interesting case study in it. And, and I said, I think the reason why Liam Neeson did it is because he didn't think it would have wide distribution. I think he did it for cash. And this goes back to Melissa Gilbert and Tim Busfield. People assume that celebrities are uber wealthy. It costs a lot of money to be a celebrity. It does, because you have agents, you have accountants, you have lawyers. There are a lot of things that take from money. And Liam Neeson, of course, you know, he was married to Natasha Richardson, so the two of them were working, but the two of them, I'm gonna call them, like working actors. So can anyone in the chat tell me why and this matters? This is gonna be in my sound bite for the interview. Why is Liam neeson Beloved every 12 months? Give me your answers. Why every year, every year, do people fall in love with Liam Neeson again? And I think this plays into the reason why the story got lost when. When I saw it come up, it was December 12th. December 12th. I need something. Come on. Looking at two chats. Come on, somebody herb. Well, Lauren saying, because we miss Natasha Richardson. I know I can. That's not the answer. It's not the anniversary of his wife's death. It's not because of the film out. Nope. Good answers, Carla. Good answer. Oh, Allie for the win. Love, actually, every single holiday, everybody falls in love with Liam Neeson. He's the widower in love actually, every single year. Do you guys second me on that era? Coming in hot with love actually too so. And yes, I mean, good marketing team, but. I mean, that's a good answer. But no, I, I, I. Here's my point. Like Natasha, Natasha Richardson and Liam Neeson. Busfield, Melissa Gilbert. They're Working actors. Well, actually, Melissa Gilbert, I don't even know last time that she worked. She's now has, I think. Is it called Half Pint clothing or something? I think. Or on the Prairie clothing, Something like that. Sorry, I don't have the facts in front of me, but it's expensive. So I think Liam Neeson did it for cash. Like, he just did it for the paycheck. And. And I think that his. I think his agent probably said to him, and Liam Neeson, I'm going to give him credit here because I do like Liam Neeson. My favorite, favorite performance of his is not Love, actually, though I do love Love. Actually, it is. Oh, God. Which one was it? Is it Extras with Ricky Gervais? Oh, my gosh. When he's reading for the role, when he wants to play the part of Schindler's List because he makes lists. That is. Oh, that's the funniest thing ever. So that's why I love Liam Neeson. But that's what I think. I think his agent said no one's gonna see. It's not gonna have wide distribution, so don't worry about it. And he cashed a paycheck, but then it got. It got out. So anyway, so I'm doing an interview on that. But back to Timothy Busfield. The reason why I jumped in about Timothy Busfield, because I. I look at the lawyer statements. I've done a lot. Sadly, love actually doesn't. Like. It used to stay some problematic stuff. That wasn't a big issue back then. Thank you for saying that. This is not my brain pong, and I will definitely come back to it. You're. You are correct about love actually. Love actually, with each year does not age well. Even with, like, what, fat shaming. Oh, my God. Like, when they say rules, I love actually once. Is that. Is that. Is that possible? To only see it once? So good. But when he's. When they said it's just a little big in the thigh. Sure. Like, oh, what do we call it? Chubby. Like, that's so bad. It's so bad. It's so bad. Yeah. So he's. Yeah. So there's a lot of cash in his movies. But if you really look at a lot of these actors, they don't do that well. And especially now because of the industry. We don't have a major motion picture industry any anymore. We have streamers. You know, the money is not there like it used to be, especially for big stars or a list stars. They do not have the money. So I absolutely see a Liam Neeson looking for money. And, and there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with it. That's why a guy does take. And that's why a guy does Naked Gun and all that. But, but so I, and this is not me criticizing whatever. I'm just looking at it from the choice that he made. But I thought that was interesting. But, but anyway, the reason why the Timothy Bus. I stood out, it was because of the statement, because I was. I was looking at things online and then noticed a story that nobody was noticing again, which was a Timothy Busfield story that, oh my gosh, there's an actor that a good swath of elder millennial Gen Z baby boomers know who Timothy Busfield is. And, and a lot of people are starting to find West Wing too, now that I think it's on Netflix. And Danny Concannon, pretty significant character. I'm not. He's not top line above the folk in West Wing, but certainly important part of the C.J. craig storyline. And he was really good in it. Played the role of a journalist. He was very good in it. So a lot of people know who he is. But it's these statements. It's these lawyer legal statements. And, and so when I noticed that he was gone for three days, I went, wait a minute. It. Timothy Bossfield has been missing for three days. Of course, I'm always trying to be like a very objective crisis manager. You don't want bias to creep in. But I went, guilty, guilty. But then again, Harrison Ford was not guilty. The Fugitive, he was accused of murdering ca. His wife. We found out that he wasn't. But in the headlines, the US Marshals were in. So that is Tommy Lee Jones in the Fugitive looking for Harrison Ford. The Marshalls came in to find him. So then he pops up. And that's why I thought, well, this is. This is. This story's got to end somehow. And then later on in the day. So of course, I have no time to do a tik tok. And then Westfield was a jerky mother. Yep. He was in Field of Dreams. And he was also in. Let me go to my notes. Do I have Timothy Busfield notes? Yes, I have Timothy Busfield notes. Because. Because what I noticed was his statement. And also. Oh. So I was saying that I did the post on Timothy Busfield. And then of course, Timothy freaking Busfield shows up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Like, Timothy, you're killing me. Because I had to run out the door. I had to be somewhere, but I wanted to Quickly, you know, say, okay, now we have a part two on Tick Tock. So, yeah, Louise. Saying that his video did nothing to correct the narrative. So here we have Timothy Busfield, I believe maybe in a lawyer's office. He has a new lawyer since then. So it could have been his lawyer who did it. Could have been Melissa. Could have been halfway Melissa Gilbert. But someone was holding the phone. Why? Timothy Busfield said, I'm here. You know, I was just driving three days. I was driving 2,000 miles. Okay, okay. And then I'm here, and I'm working with everyone, working, you know, working with authorities on this. But we're gonna fight this. It's not true. And this narrative about the framing. And so that's when I go, because I. This is what I do. This is what I do. I am in every day. I work with clients, and every day, I spot it. When I'm looking online, I'm looking for those types of. That type of language. That is a language of COVID Does it mean he's guilty? No. Could. Does it mean that on my TikTok, I said 100% what I thought? No, because I. Who knows? I could have been sued. But it. But what he said in that statement and also subsequently from his lawyer, it's not to say that he's guilty. We don't know innocent until proven guilty. But all the language that he is using is. Is the same language that guilty people use. Jill saying, my experience with charges like this is that they don't make them public unless there's a 99 chance of conviction, because discharging can ruin the life. But that's in my region. I can share that with you too. Oh, Alec Baldwin's trail was in New Mexico, too, right? Alec Baldwin. The Rust argument trial. The Rust trial. Oh, my goodness. There must. They must have tax breaks to film in Albuquerque. But here's what we have for Timothy Busfield. And again, whether you care about Timothy Busfield or not, but this gets in the world of celebrity. Celebrity lawyers and celebrity lawyers who always favor legal liability over reputation, which, frankly, that's what you're paying them to do. But the mistake that all these celebrities make, they all make this mistake. They do not hire a reputation expert. They only have legal, and then legal runs reputation. And I still contend. There are people who told me, I think on my last live chat or no, I had our training. Someone said lawyers can be good at crisis management. I mean, parts of it, but a lawyer, a lawyer who is good at reputation management wearing both hats is. Is akin to saying that you can be a Yankees fan and a Red Sox fan. You can't be. You can't. You cannot be both. You cannot be both. You cannot be a lawyer and also be a reputation expert working with that same Claire, the same client. You can't, because lawyers are there, and they're only looking for legal liability, and they are going to do and say anything to get their client off. And when you do or say anything to do that, the liability, what, the consequence, the cost is the reputation. That's how it works. That's the math. You cannot be both as. As one. You cannot be both at once. Lawyers, if you want to come at me, you can come at me on this. But I stand by it. And to say that, too, that that's true, like lawyers can be reputation managers, then that's like me saying that, okay, well, when I'm working these cases, I can be a lawyer. I'll work with you. But, hey, why don't you have me, bring me to trial. I'll sit next to you, I'll run your defense. It doesn't mean that I wouldn't do great arguments. I could probably do it, but I'm not trained in. And I'm not skilled in it. But that's why you can't do it. And that's what happens to celebrities over and over and over again. And compare that to what happens kind of in the real world. Like, people in the real world, they're just worried about the legal. Okay, yeah, they're worried about reputation, but they don't think, oh, I need a lawyer. And reputation. But it's totally different. But when you're a celebrity, your future, your currency, your financial currency and financial future is based on your reputational currency or capital. If you don't have a reputation anymore, you don't have. You don't have currency, meaning you don't have money. You don't have reputation, and you don't have money. You don't. And so it's killing them. So right now, Timothy Busfield probably is okay with going all in on legal is because. He's going all in on legal because these are very serious charges. And. And I still say this from watching the Timothy Busfield statement, you know, from the. From the. The phone, it doesn't look good. Okay? And I thought, there's absolutely 100 more to this. And now there is 1994, there was a case that came up, Minneapolis, when he was filming Little Big League. And there's photos of him in a Minnesota twins hat, a 17 year old female extra in the early 2000s, a 16 year old who was auditioning in a local theater. 2012, a woman in a movie theater. So the theater had to come out with the statement. The theater is aware of a report concerning Timothy Busfield regarding an incident alleged to have occurred. Alleged to have occurred at B street Theater approximately 25 years ago. That's actually pretty good because you're putting the timing in there. Like, listen, this was so long ago. Like, don't come at us right now. Associate Executive director Liz Badu wrote in a statement, adding that an internal investigation was conducted at the time. Mr. Buzzfield has not had any role in the organization since 20, since 2001. That's actually a very, very good statement because Liz, the executive director was likely not at the theater back then. Could have been, but likely wasn't there. They did do an investigation, but they found nothing happened. But still that could have been a bad investigation. So it still doesn't look good now. But she said the facts. And then she also said Mr. Buzzfield has not had any role in the organization since then. That's a really, really good statement. So then we have the twin boys on the set, which is in 2020, which is what everybody's talking about today. So Christina McGovern, the investigator who led Warner Brothers investigation, told NBC News, based on what was alleged and all evidence gathered, including multiple witness statements, I found no cooperating evidence that Mr. Busfield engaged inappropriate conduct or that he was ever alone with the twins on the set. So that helps Timothy Busfield. But that hurts Christina McGovern as an investigator when all these other things are coming out. So it's not looking good for Timothy Busfield. And poor. I. I mean, I just feel sorry for Melissa Gilbert. I feel sorry for Melissa Gilbert. They have a home in upstate New York. I guess it's in the Pennsylvania border. And the Marshalls came in with a battering ram and knocked down the door. And then I guess they left like 10 minutes later, 20 minutes later. So they didn't get anything. But Melissa Gilbert's statement is this quote, during this period. Okay, let's really look at what she's saying here now. And then we'll wrap. During this period, her focus is on supporting and caring for their very large family. As they navigate this moment, Melissa stands with and supports her husband and will address the public at an appropriate time. We ask that their privacy be respected. I don't know, what do we think? Would a reputation manager suggest that often it is best not to go to court? Not talking about criminal cases. I think what you're asking me. You go legal when you're in the middle of a crisis, if that's what you're asking me. Because if you're doing a court case like Timothy Busfield who showed up, you're saying, oh, yeah, look, he. He looked a mess. Oh, my God. Did you see him in that hearing in the orange jumpsuit look bad. Yeah. I will tell you, I am not a big fan of legal action. When people call me, they'll ask if they should. They want it. Like a big one is they want to write a cease and assist. I always say cease and desist. We're thinking that you need to write it. Cease and desist. Daniel. Oh, Alan Jackson just did an interview with Billy Bush and said things he shouldn't have about Nick Reiner case. Not a lot, but wasn't a good idea. I only saw parts of that, Danielle. I only put some parts of it on social media. It was interesting that he took that case, considering the Alan Jackson high off of Karen Reed. That's a. It seemed like a money grab in a way. Right. Like you think there's gonna be a lot of money there to try them, and maybe you found out there was no money and left. I. I can't speak directly to it because I didn't. I didn't hear all of it. Yes. Not being. Oh, here's the BBC. I'm sorry. BBC. I'm talking about. We're gonna talk about. On my life. Yes. Not being arrested, but more in civil cases. Yeah. I. I tell people, you know, a lot of people, when people hire me or want to hire me, and they tell me they want to do legal action, that immediately, Immediately makes me suspicious because it's. That's when someone wants something to go away and they want to go away quickly and they want to go away with legal measures instead of just facing it and telling the truth, you know, so. So that's the reason why I don't like it. I don't. And. And most reasons you can take care of, which is a good statement and accountability. So there's that. I mean, unless there's defamation, you know, get into defamation or something like that, but the legal definition of it, because that's a hard. It's a hard case to win. But usually I always tell people, don't even bother. Just clean up your own mess. Take accountability where you need to take accountability and call it. Alrighty, everyone. Well, I want to thank you guys for joining me on our live today. This Timothy Busfield story seems like a stage controlled distraction to distract from the Epstein. The Sasha Riley audio files. Oh, yeah, Sasha, yeah. The Sasha Riley's stuff I don't know much about. I read a little bit. I hadn't heard about it and I just. Someone mentioned it to me online. I do not think the White House has control over Timothy Busfield and what he actually did because he actually. Timothy Busfield's problem is Timothy Buzzfield's problem. And also it's not like if anything, Timothy Busfield is lucky because. Or the only lucky as on the side is all of this is happening at such an incredible crazy time in the news cycle. Otherwise, if this was summer and there weren't any news stories, it would be a trip, a new story, but it's pretty much falling through. And I don't think I, I hear you when the White House is looking for any distraction that they can. But I don't know if they're going to use Timothy for that. But I appreciate what you're thinking that we are in the world of distractions. All right, everyone, I, I want to thank you for joining me on this week's Live. It's always fun. I always love getting your, your takes on things as well. So you can join me. Will there be a next week? Yes. Can join me next week at this time. God, I don't even want to think about what's going to happen next week. What we have to talk about. Hopefully we can talk about something good if any, anything good ever happens. But also for members of the Vault, we do. I'm cooking up some good interviews right now to bring in some guests. Course we have Dr. Abby coming back, but also I have a producer, like a writer for The Today show, today.com. she's going to come on too, and we're going to talk about different stories and then, oh, yes, the President Venezuela gave Trump her Nobel priest prize. Yes. Did you see the photo of him grinning? The Greg shared a tweet with me that you see all the Home Depot gold and he's grinning with it. It's so ridiculous. It's so silly. It's so silly. Everything is so driven by ego. But for Vault members, we're gonna be setting up soon. February 17th is when we're gonna have our next monthly training. All right, everyone, thank you so much for joining me this week. As always, we love having you here for my lunch hour and any lunch hour that you guys have. And I hope to see you guys, I hope to see you all here next week for the live.