Week of PR Wins & Losses

A live YouTube episode (Oct 13, 2025) by Molly McPherson reviewing the week's public-relations wins and losses. The host walks through a set of reputation stories—Bill Belichick/UNC turmoil and press conference, Dolly Parton's health/communications and business headlines, SNL's perceived decline, Katie Porter's viral staff/decorum footage and ensuing fallout, Taylor Swift's ERAS tour documentary release—and intersperses audience chat, personal anecdotes, and promotion for an upcoming crisis-response workshop.
Chapters
And just as I was typing Bill Belichick in, there's a live Bill Belichick press conference. Now, many of you probably don't care about Bill Belichick at all. You could be UNC fans, you could be New England fans, or not. Or you could just be following along for the schadenfreude of the, let's call it what it is, the fall of Bill Belichick. It could be the girlfriend, Jordan Hudson. Oh, Manny, you're Bostonian. Oh, interesting. So you're following it. I was watching the Bill Belichick presser. I don't know how many of you. You care. I don't know how many of you are New England or if you Pats fans or follow the Pats. But what I mean. So Bill Belichick, watching that press conference, it threw off my prep work for our call today. 100%. It threw it off because it was fascinating. And he happened to be one of the topics this week. Chris Mann. Yeah. You're New England. Chris. I think we've officially moved into ruin, legacy and reputation territory. Oh, my goodness. I can't say who I did it with because it hasn't been announced yet, but I did something about Bill Belichick that's coming out in the future. He is a study. He is a study in reputation and what happens when you lose control of it. So let's just talk about that this week. This is what we always talk about, right? This is. This is what I like to do. Let's chart who's having. Who's having a good week, who's not having such a good week. I was on the road. I was traveling. I could not hop on live on Friday for normally our news dump day because I was traveling. I probably could have squeezed it in, but because of the shutdown and TSA and being at a big airport, I didn't wanna risk it. I didn't know what I'd be dealing with. So I thought, oh, we'll just hop up on Monday and kind of do a week in review. So let's go through some of the people. Let me ask you this question first, because I wanna make this as interactive as possible. Who do you think. Who is on your radar right now? Who are you following? Which stories interest you? Whose narrative interests you right now? Let. Let me know. Manny. Serena Williams, husband. There's a story there right now. What am I missing? What did Alexis do? Uh. Oh, okay, let me go to the Goog. Let me go to the Goog. What am I missing there? Oh, Stephen A. Smith responds to Alexis Ohania after viral Serena Williams super bowl exchange. Didn't know that. Confronted him saying he divorced Serena Williams. The text. The tense exchange took place on first take months after Smith claimed he divorced Serena Williams for dancing with Kendrick Lamar during the halftime show. Well, that was quite a halftime show, wasn't it? Speaking on air. On air. Okay, I missed that. I did not know that. I did not know that when I first saw Dancing. I went, are we talking about Dancing with the Stars? Which sidetracked quickly. My daughter Rory, when I was in a hotel, she was texting me because she was watching Dancing with the Stars. She had a question, and I thought, I've not watched Dancing with the Stars since it premiered. I'm going to go to it. And I went over there and I got sucked into Dancing with the Stars. Watching some of the people. Alex Earle, Hilaria Baldwin. Oh, my gosh. Talk about a reputation in the balance. Holy moly. For people who remember the Alec Baldwin back in the day to see him part of a Dancing with the Stars package with his wife. Who's still with the accent. Still with the accent. Anyway, okay, that was. I loved Serena Williams dancing in the halftime show. That was fantastic. But I didn't know about this, so thank you for sharing that. What other stories are out there? Like, what are you guys following? I did mention I'll start here. Oh, I got to write this person. I got to write this in my. My notes. Sienna. Okay, so a couple things before we get going. Tell me who you're following right now. I want to know who you're following. What stories are you following? And even if you say it, it doesn't mean that you're a fan or that you actually care. Sometimes there's just a human element to the story that makes it an interesting story. There's an arc there. That's why people are drawn to it. Like I'm drawn to stories when there's an arc, when we're seeing what's happening. So we have the character, whoever it is, and then we have the event, what's happening, and then it comes up to the kind of the breaking point or the pinch point, and then there's the casualty and the fall or the rise, you know, whatever it is. Beth is saying Chicago. Oh, yeah, the Trump Pritzker ice gnome battle. But Chicago, oh, my gosh, they are doubling down. Chicago is doubling down. These Democratic cities are doubling down. Which reminds me, what do we think? Kristi Noem, snl. Let's just start. Let's Start here. Now let's start with snl. What do we think? Full transparency. I only saw a couple skits online. I was out on Saturday night. I was at the Emmys in New York City. Chris says so so SNL finally parodying the Maga women. Yes. Yeah. So Amy Poehler brings in Tina Fey. It wasn't mean enough, didn't land for me. So what I've been reading and what I've been looking at is that SNL has kind of lost a step. I happen to be on a SNL Reddit, like Reddit is feeding me the SNL subreddit. So I'm getting a lot of the stuff in there. And I do find it interesting because every year they say this whenever there's like a big cast change that it takes a while to get em under the feet. But I have a quick theory and I wanna know what you guys think. Cause I was talking about this on Sunday at breakfast with people. You know, snl, they bring in all these new people so they get rid of like the Heidi Gardner's of the world and they have all these new cast members. But a lot of these cast members are known for being viral people or they're on TV shows that appeal to Gen Z because they wanna get younger viewers. Right? Like Lorne Michaels wants to bring the younger people in. And, and we have comedians and online comedians and, and I don't know if you're noticing this and, and someone gave me the intel, I forget I've said this before. I was in a green room and somebody told me this, but they were talking about Mac, Matt Rife, you know, who's a typical, like a TikTok comedian. A lot of these comedians and I went to a show when I was in Chicago when we went to visit Kate in Chicago, we went to the Laugh Factory, I think there's a Laugh Factory in there. And Kate made us sit in the front row. Like I don't wanna be here. And I'm sitting in the front row in view of their TikTok, you know, on their video camera. And I am not the person you want because comedians have to be funny to make me laugh. And I'm tired, you know, I'm sitting like, oh my gosh, we've already been drinking. And I'm just like so tired and I'm just sitting there and I realize I have to check myself, like I have to act like this is funny. A lot of comedians in real time, like full flow are not funny, but they're bits. Their TikTok Bits are. So my SNL review is that they're going for these kind of TikTok people, but they're not SNL funny. And it's not catching on. I know we're only two in, but, like, at Amy Poehler, who's very funny, but Amy Poehler kind of needs people around her to be funny, in my opinion. I mean, she's naturally a very funny person, but where she comes to life is when she's surrounded by funny, which is why she works with Seth and Tina and the people. But it's sputtering, in my opinion, because they're relying so heavily, and a lot of these funny people aren't that funny. So that's just my opinion. Manny, I think it's interesting that it was legacy cast versus new cast. Could it be because they don't want to be canceled? No one wants to be canceled, right? Yeah. But I think, yeah, if we talk about legacy, that's a good way to look at it. I like that term, legacy. It's people who were picked for maybe improv talent, stage presence talent. But they're bringing in people who are just kind of viral people. They're not legacy. Chris, you like some of new cast members. Like who And Beth. It wasn't mean enough. Yeah. And it just wasn't like I saw the, you know, the Amy Poehler Pam Bondi skit, which was funny and very typical Amy Poehler, but she needed other people to be funny. And when they had. When the members in the hearing, I mean, they kind of nailed the impersonation, the impression, but it wasn't funny. But that's just me. That's just me. So SNL right now for me is, like, right here, they gotta start doing something, you know, because they're leaving these guests kind of hanging, because we're not. And then this morning, I watched Amy Poehler, Bowen Yang at the Juilliard School, like, doing the TV show theme songs and that just. But that was just me. Okay, Manny brought up Dolly. So let me tell you about Dolly Parton last week. Well, Dolly Parton. Dolly Parton is here. Will Dolly Parton ever be down? I don't think so. I don't think she's capable of ever being down ever. But Dolly Parton, we all noticed. So it was maybe a week ago. She puts out a statement on Instagram. So black background, white font, not super easy to read. But at the bottom it says Dolly, you know, with a. Announcing that she is canceling her Las Vegas shows. Not residency, but Las Vegas shows. And she Said, you know, kind of like a doctor's orders. I need to do my 100,000 mile checkup. You know, nothing's wrong, but, you know, I just have to do this. So no alarm bells. I mean, sometimes when people see that, you know, people get, you know, concerned. But it was well written, it was perfect. I mean, there's nothing wrong with it. And it would have been fine. It would have been fine. But two other things happened. One, and I only found this out from searching after I was in on it, after I was like locked in on the Dolly story. She was supposed to appear at an October Halloween event at Dollywood and she sent a video saying she couldn't be there because she was under the weather. And I don't remember if that message. And it was video message. So you could see her and you could see how she was. Her voice isn't there. You know, her voice seemed rappy, raspy, like she has a cold. And I don't know if she said it or if I read it somewhere that there was like a something with a kidney, but nothing major. Again, nothing major, but just something that came up. Let me go to the notes too. Let me go to the notes. Oh, we have some more comments. I will go back to those because I missed those. So that was happening and then also happening at the same time. There were two parks owned by Dollywood, but not Dollywood, but owned by the company that were closing. So there's some mixed messaging out there that maybe Dollywood is having problems. So now we have that story, the business aspect of the story. But then Dolly's sister Frida goes to Facebook and posts, we need the prayer warriors out to pray for Dolly. And I don't know, it had the feeling of someone who really wasn't thinking, oh, this will go viral. This will get out. It's just, oh, I'll tell my family, friends and just a few people, fans, you know, that we need to pray for Dolly. She wasn't thinking that, like, the world pays attention to Dolly Parton. So that went out. And then what happens? It gets picked up, becomes a news story, and then everyone's worried. Then there was a follow up on Facebook where she said, you know, my last post, I didn't want to scare people. She's fine, she's fine. So on. So I'm in my hotel room doing a post that I wanted to spend 15 minutes on and I spent like three fricking hours on it because you just get in it. And I couldn't get ahold of my team to help me with the video. I was dealing with the WI Fi and I was getting really frustrated. So I researched it and I post it. And just when I hit posts about Dolly, you know, just talking about the whole response of it, Dolly Parton, God love her, posts a photo, a video of. Hey, y', all, I know some of you are thinking that there's something wrong with me. I can assure you that nothing's wrong with me. I mean, it was perfection. It was perfect. And there I was. I spent all this time on this video for not. But in it, I refer to Dolly's rep, Ollie. Okay. And because of course, you have to do a riff on Dolly, Ollie and Molly, which I did. But then I'm getting ready to speak. Then that day, next day, that. That day, no next day from Dolly's team reaches out to me to say, ali's not the rep. And then I got some scuttle. Now, I'm sorry I can't share it right now, but I'm going to report back more because I do think Dolly's response was so incredibly good. Like, that's perfection. You just get Dolly out there and make a video. She is my win for the week. I said in my post she's the win for the year. But without a doubt, she is the win for the week. You know what? Let me. So I can see messages better. Let me bring up my. My live. So I can see. My apologies. So I can see your. Oh, there we are. Okay, here we go. I could see your comments this way better when I'm in the live chat. Okay. All right. Who else? Okay, so. And I'll do Bill Belichick quickly. Bill Belichick had to come out with statements stating that he is staying at you. Why is my. Hold on. I want to get my comments coming up. Oh, there they are. Okay, now they are. Okay, here they come. Okay, so Bill Belichick has released statements because now there are rumors, there's buyout rumors that. That his tenure at UNC has not been successful. And any New England Pats fan would know that. There's, there's. There's a. Everyone's kind of known. The Bill Belichick culture is kind of known. And when you have professional players making millions of dollars and brand deals and everything, it can even itself out, like a little bit. You know, then you have an owner, you have Kraft in there as well. But when you go to college and you're recruiting 18 year olds and you're dealing with college students and he brings in his people His NFL people, you just know it's not going to work. So now the future Bill Belichick is under doubt. And the athletic. So Bill Belichick and the UNC athletic director. I'm not making this up. Bubba Cunningham put out statements. So Carolina Athletics, you know, Bill Belichick, quote, I'm fully committed to UNC football and the program we're building here. Bubba, Coach Belichick has the full support of the department of Athletics and university. Do we believe that? Do we believe it? And Bill Belichick is now the case study in how. How quickly a reputation can turn and how permanent a legacy can be ruined. Chris says he's committed, but are the UNC boosters intentionally vague? Yes, 100%. He should have retired. And Manning. What Bill Belichick did, I think is. Cause this is what I see in my work. This is what I see in my work, what gets in the way, and what is usually a mark of a successful crisis response and an unsuccessful one when you have the person in the middle. So let's say a Bill Belichick, because it's not just Bill Belichick. It's also unc. They're being dragged into this right now. So they have to stand by him because they invested a lot of cabbage behind him. Okay, There is a lot of money behind Bill Belichick and Manny bringing. Chris bringing up the boosters. So what do you have when you have colleges and universities? What does it come down to? You have donors. You have donors. You also have an athletic program where there's now, I believe, two programs that have been tanked that they wanted to highlight, you know, the Bill Belichick years at unc. And two programs got tanked. Then the New York Times put out an article that I read it on. I read it on Friday, quoting people within the university system saying, this is a joke. This is a joke. So you always have the. So now you have the fissures and the fractions and the factions that happened in the crisis. And so now you got to roll out Bill Belichick to do a press conference. And Bill Belichick hates press conferences. Like a response to Bill Belichick, if he's being asked a question. And now actually, there's a point. I was watching it. He was, like, trying to smile. He was trying to, like, have an affect. Anyone else? It's not working. So this is not working. This is a. A reputation, legacy spiral in real time. Manny, he should have retired instead, like Brady, he stayed a few seasons too long. People could argue that Tom Brady, though. I mean, he got a Super bowl out of it, and now he's color, and now he's an owner. He should have followed Brady just a little bit more. Wouldn't you agree on that one? Best comment I heard is they're just waiting for the right booster to shell out the 20 million. They're waiting for the booster, Beth. Hubris, right? We always go to hubris. It was striking to see the parents now complain about how their kids were being affected by his behavior. Lack of adjustment to college, players versus adult. Exactly. What was the an. What was the anecdote that they mentioned, like, kicking out the kid who was sick or wouldn't let him play? There's. Then there's the whole not congratulating Drake May last week until the Internet, of course. Yeah, he. I mean, could you imagine? I mean, and that game. I mean, geez, the Bills and the Pats and the rumor he mandated no UNC tweets about anything. Patriots, which. You know what? You know that's true. You know that's true. Did not stay too long. I got you, Chris. I got you on that. So then what isn't coming up right now? But who's always there? Who's lurking in the background of. Of Coach Belichick? Who's the character? Because Bill Belichick is not the main character. Who has main character energy in the UNC story. I know there's a lag here. Who has the main character energy in the Bill Belichick story? I'll wait. I don't think she's Beyonce. That would be Jordan Hudson, Miss Maine, runner up, I believe. Or second runner up. That would be Jordan Hudson. She's the main character. She has main character energy all over this. And she was supposed to be in Dancing with the Stars, which would have been a coup for Dancing with the Stars, and apparently it got. I read that New York Times article. It was like on a Thursday morning. I read it on Thursday morning, and she was. They were supposed to start the next day or Tuesday morning, whatever it was. She was supposed to start like that, that next day, and she. And she yanked it. Cause she was asking too much. So anyway, so that's why the Bill Belichick store, it's gonna end in flames. It just is. Because Jordan Hudson, the young girlfriend, has way too much power there. Okay, so that. Yeah, Hilaria. Oh, it's. Yeah. Very briefly. Hilaria Baldwin. That's another person. Alec Baldwin had legacy. He had a legacy. No matter what we think of Alec Baldwin, he's A phenomenal actor. He's a comedy guy. I mean, he's very good at comedy, but he is a very good actor. I've always said this. Hunt for Red October is one of my favorite movies of all time. And Alec Baldwin is phenomenal in that. He was in Working Girl. He was in. There's just so many good Alec Baldwin stories there. But then he marries Ellaria and Ellaria has main character energy. You know what I'm going to introduce to the crisis world? Main characters. Maybe every crisis has a main character who brings it down. I was having a conversation yesterday with someone. Are they Gen Z is 29 years old? Gen Z? I don't know, but we were talking about main character and I could be wrong, but someone who has main character energy is always negative, right? Like main character energy. But when you have that person in the mix, it never works out. Okay, next person. And you guys tell me your thoughts too. Well, let's just go. Bill Belichick. I didn't get a chance to do a post, but I'm going to do a post about this. Is Sister Jean 100% him and hunt for it. October, right? 1 1. Ping only. Best movie he ever did. Best movie he ever did. Sister Jean. Loyola University of Chicago, died at 106. Talk about the comparison in legacy and reputation. Look how a name can boost the image of a university and how a name can tank it. Unc Loyola University Chicago. Look at the two happening side by side. And ooh, if the Cubbies would have won, that would have been fantastic. It would have been fantastic. Absolutely. Okay, so let me go on the list here. Let's see who else. The movie is where I fell. That movie is where I fell in love with Sam Neill. Oh, yes, Vasily. Was he Vasily? No, no, Vasily was a doctor. I can't remember. Um, let me see some of your comments here. Cause my computer only put the newer comments up here. I think they have good talent on screen, but the writers they're hiring or where the problems. Yeah, back to snl, the writers, I agreed they cleaned a little bit of house there. Oh, Dory. Dory brings up Diane Keaton. So interesting. I don't know if it's interesting fact, but two years ago, two years ago October, I'm at the Emmys, the news Emmys in New York City. And I'm at a table with all these newsies when I get the notification that Matthew Perry died. It was two years ago, right? Two years ago October when he died. And I went, oh, my gosh, Matthew Perry just died. And everyone went, what? Like that was a big deal. And then Saturday, I was at the table and I said, diane Keaton, Just tell me really quickly right now, which Diane Keaton movie is your favorite movie? The Godfather is one of my top movies of all time. The Godfather 1 and 2. And she was in it. Not that she made it, but I loved her in that. I am a baby boom girl. I loved her in Baby boom. Love that movie. And the Father, the Bride movies, of course you love those movies. I mean, I wouldn't say that that movie's like a top 10 for me, but I still will watch it all the time because Martin Short. Who's. Who's my favorite person on the planet? First Wives Club. I haven't seen that in ages, but yeah, that's a good one. Oh, more of Something's got to give. I only just saw that movie a couple months ago or I watched it over the summer. I really like that movie. That was good. I might want to watch that again. But, you know, if you think about Diane Keaton, is there. Does anyone have anything negative to say about Diane Keaton? I mean, that's a legacy. I think she had two Academy Awards. I think I heard that this morning. Like the Godfather and Help me. Can someone help me on that. Did she have two. Oh, Woody Allen, Annie Hall. I don't think. The only thing is when I was looking at some social media posts last night when I was unpacking, there was an interview with Diane Keaton and Katie Couric. When Katie Couric, she had a shag haircut. So this was. They were showing it on cbs. Did. Was Katie. Oh, that's right. She went to cbs. That was a huge mistake. Which I called. I said, this is going to be a mistake. And it was. She was quirky in the best way. Manny, I agree with you 100%. Dan Keaton was quirky in the best way. But Katie Couric did an interview with her, and it was a really good interview. It was good. And they showed it on Sunday morning. Cbs. Sunday morning. Because it just shows how. How just wired in flighty she is, if that makes sense. Like she's flighty, but kind of locked in flighty. And she's just such a charming person. But in this interview. So I don't remember when Katie couric was on 60 Minutes or it was CBS. I want to say 2001, 2008, 2009. Ish is when Katie Kirk went over there, which was a massive mistake for Katie Kirk. She never should have done that. And then went to ABC and had her own talk show. Mm. Mm. I'm going off track a little bit. But Katie Couric needed to stay at NBC because Katie Couric, like Amy Poehler, did well working off of other people. She did well working off of Matt Lauer. But on her own, it didn't work because she was cute, Katie Couric friendly. And she was first paired with Brent Gumbel, who was kind of. But it worked to have Katie Kirk in there and then Matt Lauer. So she got kind of propelled up to. Promoted up to the big sister role. And then Matt Lauer was there, and then that worked. But then Katie, someone filled her and said, oh, yeah, let's move you to CBS and make you the first female anchor. Or maybe she was second at that point. And it didn't work because then Katie Couric had to be serious, and she doesn't have the gravitas to be serious. Katie Couric is personality, but that's me going off of my newsy thing. But I called that from day one. Like, this is gonna be a massive mistake. So she gets hired. She has her Katie Couric media. She tried to get her husband, John Molner, into the media thing, but that wasn't working either because he was like an investment banker. No one cares. No one wants to watch him interview people. So I think she does fine. She speaks and she creates her content, you know, whatever. And I love that she goes online, kind of like me, like, in the raw. Like, she doesn't care. Katie Couric doesn't give. Which I think is great about Katie Couric, which is she's finally entering her authentic era. But anyway, it was a very, very good interview. But then Diane Keaton says, oh, I was just having lunch with Woody Allen yesterday. That was the only thing I can say about Katie. Wanted that Nightly News spot, Manny. You're right. She did, because that's what people. Okay, I don't want to say this publicly, but I was at. I mentioned I was at the Emmys in New York speaking of main character energy. That's what I told Greg going up there. I said, could you please be, like, one of the few anchors to not have main character energy when you go up and present? Please. Because they open, they present, they go, hey, everyone. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. Us, us, us, us. Aren't we the best? And the nominees are. Craig's great. He won an Emmy on Saturday he's great. Thank you. We had a lot of fun at a lot of cocktails, and I had people in my community come up and say hello. And one guy was so nice. He said, I saw you here last year, but I didn't want to bother you. And I was like, oh, always bother me, please. I love talking to people. Okay, so we moved on to Katie. But anyway, Diane Keaton. So she's genuine friends with Woody Allen. Okay. And she doesn't care. She doesn't give 2F. She's like, this is who my friend. Friend she did have. She admitted that she had a crush on him, you know, in the beginning. But, you know, I get it. If someone's your friend and they're tight, you're still going to be tight with them. But I thought, how interesting that you said that in that interview, because Woody. Woody Allen. Cancel culture. Thanks, Chris. Okay. I appreciate that. Okay, so moving on. Where are we? October 13th. October 13th. Moving on to my stories. So Bill Belichick. We talked about Stephen A. Smith, Diane Keaton. Let me go to the list. Does anyone else. So Dory, thank you for that. Oh, but what do you say? Health speculation. I don't think I read about anything with her yet. The health speculation for me is zero. Do we know anything? But did they date back in the day? Yes, Manny, I think they did date. I mean, she said. But I don't know if he liked her. Maybe, but she liked him. She admitted that she liked him. Dan Keaton's so charming. Jeremy Culhane is hilarious. Supposed to drop out. Okay, that's snl, Louise. She was just thinking she was posting on Facebook like a regular person. Think. Okay, that's Dolly's sister. Sorry, I'm going back to the old stuff. Just seeing some of the older things. Does anyone want to add anyone else from the week, last week or heading into this week? You know, part of the reason that it's so difficult to find people now is because I don't know if you're like me. When you go to the newspaper, when you. If you're like me. Like, every morning I wake up, one of the first things I do is just go to news to find out what. What horrible thing is happening in the world today. That's. Ooh, someone's at my door. Someone's at my door. And I can't see because I'm on my phone. Who's at my door? It could be the squirrels who are attacking. Let me see. We're back to. Let's see. Sorry, I'm looking at everyone. She made a public opinion last year. Oh. Oh. And mentioned that Diane had lost a lot of weight. Yes, I did see some of those photos. And she did. Because if you think about it, we only see Diane Keaton in the movies. We don't really see her, like, bopping around social media. And then you saw some of the photos like, damn, yeah, she lost a lot of weight. You never got to cover the Swift stuff. It's old news out. But Taylor Swift. Well, Taylor Swift is coming out with a. Yeah, we could talk about Taylor Swift, because she's. She's. She's everywhere. Taylor Swift is now coming out with a documentary with the ERAS tour, which I have to say, I think that would be interesting to see. I would be interested in seeing that. But anything else, not so much. And she made $48 million globally. I think it was globally, or was it 60 globally for her film? So here's the whole Taylor Swift I disclaimer. I am not a Swiftie. I do not claim to be a Swiftie. I'd call me fan light. Like, I don't dislike her at all. I like some of her music. I liked Life of Showgirl. When it came out, I ran to it. I was running that morning, and I said, this is what I'm gonna run to. I liked it, but the fact that I liked it means I think I agree with people that it wasn't very good. I'm gonna use myself as a marker because I liked Life of a Showgirl, and I kind of believed the people who thought it was mediocre at best, because I'm not a good mark of that. I'm not a good mark. Then when I was speaking. So two things happened. I was on the Jason show, which is in 48% of the markets, I believe, in the country on Tuesday. And they were telling me all the people that they were gonna talk about. And then when I got out there, Jason wiped this lake clean, and we were just talking about people he wanted to talk about. And I thought, am I qualified to answer these questions? But one I had prepped for was Taylor Swift, because my handler that day, my friend Beth, her daughter's a huge Swiftie, and we were talking about, like, Blake Lively. They wanted to talk about Blake Lively. And Taylor Swift, in one of the videos, was wearing this bracelet that Blake Lively has. And a lot of Swifties are speculating, like, what that meant. That was her rubbing her nose into Blake Lively or sending a signal to Blake Lively. I think it's more of, like, sending A signal slash. Anything that Taylor Swift does is intentional. There is nothing unintentional with Taylor Swift at all. Nothing. Everything she does is strategic. So when I'm looking at sentiment, public sentiment and opinion on Taylor Swift, there's a lot of commentary out there that Taylor Swift is really capitalizing on capital almost too much. She has every right to everybody else does. Like does does. Is Elon Musk getting creamed with this every day? Tim Cook, whatever. I mean, all these big titans out there grabbing for money. Taylor Swift has every right to do the same thing. But you know, there's, you know, because her audience though is primarily younger and Skew's younger. But the news and everyone follows her. Some of her want to. Some people are saying, you know, could you be a little more empathetic to the fact that the world's burning down around you while you make your money thing? But that's just a thought. Chris, does that cover it? I can't go too deep on Taylor Swift because I have, to be honest. Sb, Ava Louise and Lilia Gibney. I don't know anything about that. I'm usually not up on my TikTok drama, but I'll look into that if that's something that's interesting. I do the same thing. I sometimes end up reading things for hours when I should be doing other things. Right. Did she not already? No, maybe, But I just saw it today. Like, is there some other documentary or maybe correct me on that. Someone made a comment today that stayed with me. Taylor. She said that showgirl sounds like a high school girl's poetry. And the reason why a lot of us aren't liking it. Ooh, us, Manny, are you a swiftie? Is because we see a 30 something year old writing like a high school kid and doesn't live up to it. Yes, I saw that critique as well. Yes, I did see that critique as well. I thought that landed. That critique landed because that type of language sells. Right? And that's what made Taylor Taylor. She's going back to the well, as it says. Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore. She performed True Believer on Jimmy Fallon. Anyone heard chatter on her no more. No, but other people might know that. Okay, so chime in on anyone else that we are chatting about. I am always open to chatting. And because I've been gone for nine days, I haven't been as wired in as I could be because I've been out in the real world. Now let me before I go to my next story. Well, Manna, you're a Swiftie am I wrong on the doc or something? That came out that something got announced today? Four hours ago. Four hours ago. Four hours ago. So this is what I saw. Taylor Swift bringing six episode eras, tour, documentary and final show concert to Disney. Disney. I wonder. See Disney, they're trying to recover from their spiral, their digital death spiral. So there's our answer. Will premiere on Disney on December 12, accompanied by the simultaneous release of a new concert film. Taylor Swift Heiress tour the final show. I don't know, you guys. Is this money play? Are people go, Manny. I was just going to say this. Is this a money grab? Is it almost too much? Especially Disney plus with the recent boycott of Disney plus. I wonder how much Disney paid for that. Dearly Victoria. Yeah, six part docu series. I'm going to be obvious. I mean, I'm going to be honest. I'll probably watch. I don't know if I'll watch. I'll say Hayley Williams is amazing because she's doing what so many arts. Okay, I am going to listen to Hayley Williams because I'm now in my Spotify era, my music era, thanks to Taylor Swift. I'm back. I'm back to music I was actually listening to on my drive back from New York yesterday. Bad Bunny, Marc Anthony. Oh my gosh. She had a relationship with Disney. Owns, owned her masters. Really? Oh, I didn't know that. That's interesting. That's interesting. Okay, the other person we're gonna chime in. I like doing quizzes. Greg does not like my quizzes. He will just say, just tell me. I'm like, no, we're in a car. We have hours to go. You're gonna play a quiz. So we're all gonna do a quiz here. Who went through a reputational beat down last week, late last week. Political realm. Not obvious. Not a new person completely. It was a person who was very viral at one time in a very positive viral way. Went viral for all the reasons why a politician needs to go viral. And then last week, oof, oof. Went viral in a really, really bad way. Highlighting one of the issues that comes up in a crisis a lot. One, I was speaking to a client this morning and we're trying to prevent something from happening. And we were paying attention to this stakeholder. So who is it? Who? What politician went through a viral scrubbing late last week? Bad Bunny's album is so good. That's the ironic and frustrating thing about the super bowl crap, right? But you know what? If you watch like Bad Bunny in Puerto Rico because That's the other thing I was watching. Well, not watching. I was driving. Listening to Bad Bunny Mark in concert. Did she mix meds and maybe a cocktail or two? Manny, who are we talking about? The person who I'm talking about. Manny. Got it. Tara said. Chuck Schumer. No, we are talking about Katie Porter. Not a sexy, fun viral name, but in the world of reputation and story, it's pretty interesting. Katie Porter went viral because of videos that got out about her. And if you remember Katie Porter, she was a congressperson. She. Who incidentally, lived right around the corner from my own. My old town home in D.C. and I only knew that because someone who I worked with lived nearby and said that Katie Porter kind of lived in the same development that I lived in. But she was the one who had the whiteboard. She kind of Russered Tim Russard when she would. When she would have, like, bank execs testify, and she'd bring out the whiteboard and say, could you tell me, okay, if it's X amount of dollars? X amount of dollars. X amount of dollars. X amount of dollars. Can you explain this money? Which, by the way, I did that with a client. I said, we're going to Tim Russert this. Get a whiteboard and start doing numbers. And can I tell you, it works. It does. That's why. That's why Tim Russert was huge in 2008. Oh, wait, no. Was it eight? No. George Bush, 2001. He died in 2008. And Katie Porter, same thing. Whiteboards. You know what works? Whiteboards. But Katie Porter, viral videos of her lashing out at staffers. And it's on video. What a mistake. And then also, what happens when things go viral negatively? Then the press picks up on it. Press starts doing interview, and then the press start asking questions, and they start pressing her. And then again, she's showing her real side. And then when things start to spiral, everybody kind of picks and finds all these negative stories. Uh, and then there's stories coming out about her divorce that apparently she said, is this in this article? I doubt it. I doubt it. Well, let me. Let me do AI real quick. Maybe AI will. Sorry, Katie Porter. I just need to use the word potatoes and this will come up. Oh, no. Let me go to the New York Post. I went to a TV station. Let me just go straight to New York Post to get this headline. Katie Porter verbally abused then husband in explicit tirade. Effing idiot and too effing dumb to operate a phone. That just makes you laugh. So she is the Gubernatorial contender right now for the to be governor in California because Newsom can't run again. She once dumped scolding mashed potato because I don't know, can. Can mashed potatoes. Scolding. Dump scolding mashed potatoes on her then husband's head during a fight. I don't even know how much I believe this because if you think about it, if you make mashed potatoes scalding, I think we the word that they wanted was scalding, not scolding. But she was scolding by tossing scalding mashed potatoes on her then husband's head. But anyone in the kitchen knows you cannot dump mashed potatoes on anyone's head. Am I right? Am I right? And mashed potatoes aren't scalding. Now maybe scalloped mashed potatoes. So I, I think. So this is a hit piece, right? The former Golden State congresswoman's ex husband, Matthew Hoffman, filed for divorce in 2013 and detailed. Oh, an ex husband lied during. During divorce. Documents detailed that the Democrat who had a reputation for exploiting at her staff, frequently abused him verbally and threw toys, books and other objects at him during their marriage. Hoffman also filed a restraining order from his rage. That's not good. Prone spouse claiming she would routinely call him an effing idiot and effing incompetent. Well, who hasn't been married to an effing idiot? An effin incompetent. And shattered a glass coffee pot in their kitchen counter in March when she felt their house wasn't clean enough. She would not let me have a cell phone because she said, you're too effing dumb. Dumb. Why am I laughing at this? Who's been in the hot seat this week? And this is okay? When she gets angry, she will claw and scratch her arms and then say to me, look at what you made me do. Okay. She regularly says that I'm a bad parent in front of the kids. Recently, the children began splitting, spitting at me and throwing their food at me, calling me bad daddy. Hoffman claimed back in 2006, Porter blew up over how he was making mashed potatoes, snapping. Can't you read the effing instructions? Okay, so now we know that these were instant mashed potatoes before she raised a ceramic bowl of steaming hot potatoes. So he's lost us. He's lost us and dumped it on my head, burning my scalp. No. Okay, anyway. Okay, well, he could be true or not. But where this comes into our lane, why we care about it is once there's one thing and what she's like, how she's treating her staff in that video. That's not good. That's not good. It's not to act that way. There's no reason to act that way. Even if you're annoyed or stressed or whatever. Yelling at someone like, you're in my effing eyeline or in my shot. That's not good. Dear, dear White San Francis, I've covered her being terrible to staff for years. Scalding straight from a Madea movie. Speaking of other crisis, she was a gubernatorial candidate. I don't think she'll survive. Yeah, I. She won't survive this. No, I totally agree with you. I say from personal experience, mashed potatoes are the food that cools off faster than anything in the world. Chris, you're absolutely right. That's why you have to make them last. They're never scalding hot, ever. I made scalloped potatoes a week ago and they were hot, hot, hot. I put them on the plate with mashed potatoes. Ice cold and that. You can't toss them. I totally agree. There's a Trump story about getting mashed potatoes dumped on his head by his older brother when they were children. Have you heard it? No. No, I haven't. Medea used grits. Grits has a different consistency than mashed potatoes. Right. Rice pilaf, however, will stay hot for ages. Yeah, if you go with rice pilaf. You're right. It would. Depends on which carb you use. Right. Grits. Which white carb that you use. Grits, rice, potatoes. Yeah. So I'm. I'm not buying the former Mr. Porter Hoffman story. There could be. You know, there's always two sides of a story in a marriage. There's always, always. And whenever someone really goes out of their way, like publicly to bring someone down, I tend not to go with that side of the story. I tend not to at all. But we do know that she has a bit of a volatile temper there. So that will come out. And I think that's going to bring her down. I think that's going to bring her down. It won't go. It won't go long. All right, so that's. Let me see my list. Did I have anyone else on my list? Sorry, you guys. Okay. If we don't have anyone else, we are going to. I don't want to bring up anything with the administration. I don't have it in me. I feel like she left the spotlight when the allegations of her campaign contributions came out. Now, this is the other big Story. Yeah, you know, it's. And it's when they start, wow, it's hard. Jill, I live in California, the largest state in the nation that has lots of exceptional people. But those who run for governor like what? I know. I know Gavin, though. I mean, the Gavin Newsom social media game. And did you notice how the White House is starting to match the same energy? It's interesting, right? It's interesting. It's interesting. Zaddy. That's funny. All right, you guys, thank you for hopping in on the chat. It was a last minute switcheroo. I do want to tell you guys, especially the members, next Wednesday and Thursday I have a workshop. Free workshop. It's open to everyone. It's what to do in the first hour of a crisis. Like when you go viral. We call it like the Mashed potato. Mashed Potato scalding store. It's next week. You know what I need to change? I need to add the link to my profile in Substack. So I think I'll highlight it on Substack right now. And I think I don't have it in there yet. I'll make sure today that we get the link in there. But the link is also in my bio that you can find it anywhere. I want you to register for it. Okay. And join us. So it's next October 22nd and 23rd, 12pm Eastern time, 3pm Eastern time, and then 1pm Eastern time on the 23rd. But for members of members of Substack, there's going to be something just for you guys. Not followers, but the actual members of my, like, my vault community in there. We also look for. This week we're going to do a members only live. This week it's just going to be members only. We're going to hop on. Probably going to be later in the week, I think either. I think Thursday. I just have to secure my schedule a little bit. But be on the lookout for a members only live that's coming out. We can chat about anything off the record. What's set in the vault stays in the vault. I should try to use the right link this time. Louise, that's okay. I don't know how you got the wrong link, but that's okay. Also remember, if you subscribe to my calendar, we have all the updated links. Deanna on my team, she's so good about putting the links out there. Gavin is winning in social media, but there's still something about him that just doesn't convince me. Manny, we're on the same. Let me predict, Let me try and mind meld you on this one. There's a sense of lack of genuineness, right? Like performative a little. But you gotta give the guy credit. I think Gavin Newsom is the most authentic he's ever been, but he's got past hiccups. Know he's another one. He's another one had to explain an affair and, you know, all this other stuff with the staffers, so. All right, everyone, thanks for joining. Even for my people from Albany. Thanks for joining. My last joiner. All right, you guys, thanks so much for joining me on this substack live. We did a quick Monday one. We'll see how it translates into votes. All right, everyone. So again, let's do the link. If you want to join me for that webinar or the the workshop coming next week, be on the lookout. We are going to have our own members only Vault Live, and we're going to start kicking off some, like, really fun, deep and dirty types of vault. What's set in it stays in it. All right, you guys, that's all for now. Thanks for joining. It. Sa.










