Episodes

When a Senate campaign gets hit with a sexting scandal, the spouse is supposed to disappear. Amy Gertner grabbed her phone, walked into a cloud of Maine blackflies, and recorded the most effective crisis response of the cycle...

A New Jersey congressman has been missing for 77 days. His office keeps posting like he's at his desk. His father is fielding press calls. And almost no one is talking about it. Tom Kean Jr. hasn't cast a vote since March 5. His team's answer? "Personal medical issue." "Back soon." "Trust us." That…

When a celebrity files a lawsuit citing harassment and a hostile work environment, her PR team is supposed to make her the sympathetic figure. Blake Lively's team did the opposite. Everyone is covering the lawsuit. Molly is c...

What do a Patriots head coach, a country legend, and a Hollywood power couple have in common? They all just gave us a master class in what trust actually is. Or isn't. The thread connecting this week's stories is the differen...

When a presidential interview goes off the rails, it is rarely an accident. It is a pattern. A man tried to kill the president on Saturday. By Tuesday, the dominant news story was a court filing about a ballroom. That is not a glitch in the news cycle. That is a Trap working exactly as designed. Th…

When a leader is under pressure, the first move tells you everything. Kash Patel sued The Atlantic for $275 million. Mike Vrabel called it a "private and personal matter." Both responses were designed to control the story. Bo...

When serious allegations land, a public figure's opening move is supposed to signal steadiness, accountability, and command of the facts. Eric Swalwell's first move did the opposite. Within hours, he reached for lawyers, labeled his accusers politically motivated, and went rogue on Instagram agains…

Melania Trump didn't walk to that podium to defend herself. She walked there to distance herself. From Epstein. From the male executives around her. And quietly, unmistakably, from her husband. This wasn't a press conference. There were no questions. No reporters. Just a controlled, produced, lawye…

Two coaches. Two losses. Two press conferences. Same signal. Villanova's Kevin Willard threatened to fire his staff on live television, doubled down in the post-game press conference, then called it a joke when the backlash hit. UCLA's Mick Cronin dismissed a reporter's question, called it the wors…

Your reputation isn't being shaped by what you say anymore. It's being shaped by everything everyone else says, organized by AI, before you've had a chance to respond. Crisis communication has a new first mover, and it isn't you. Molly McPherson breaks down the shift that most leaders still haven't…

What actually breaks first in a scandal? Not the headline. Not the viral clip. Not the backlash. It's trust. In this episode, Molly McPherson breaks down three stories where trust was fractured long before the public ever reacted. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos keeps inserting himself into the new…

Molly McPherson opens this episode not with a scandal, but with a pair of pants. It’s a disarming entry point into a much bigger question: what happens to trust when an expert starts to monetize? Drawing on her own decision t...

Episode Summary When Ryan Murphy's Love Story dropped in 2026, it didn't just revive a 25-year-old story; it rewrote the reputation of two women for a streaming audience of millions. Molly McPherson breaks down what the show got wrong, what the sourced record actually says, and why Daryl Hannah's N…

Kristi Noem sat before a congressional committee and was asked a yes-or-no question. She talked for four minutes without saying yes or no. That non-answer told us everything we needed to know — not about the question, but abo...

Prince Andrew was arrested on his 66th birthday on suspicion of misconduct in public office. He was released hours later, but this investigation is far from over. Today I'm breaking down what actually happened, what it means ...

Thirteen days into a missing persons case that has captivated national media, the story isn't the search anymore—it's the searchers. Pima County Sheriff Chris Nanos has turned a crisis investigation into a reputational implosion, and former ABC News correspondent Clayton Sandell walks me through ex…

When law enforcement calls a press conference, they're supposed to provide clarity and control the narrative. Last week's Pima County Sheriff's press conference about missing 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie—mother of Today Show anchor Savannah Guthrie—did the opposite. I brought on Emmy-winning former ne…

This week, Molly breaks down Peter Attia’s public response after his name appears more than 1,700 times in recently released Epstein-related documents. The documents include emails and calendar references tying Attia to Jeffr...

Most leaders hide behind surprise when disaster strikes. Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara did the opposite. In a January 2025 interview with The New York Times' Michael Barbaro, O'Hara said the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent was "predictable and entirely preventable"—and that he'd said …

Brooklyn Beckham just torched his parents on Instagram, and the timing? Impeccable. Devastating. Strategic. In this episode, breaking down the Beckham family crisis as it unfolded in real time (Literally! Molly was doing a li...

When Renee Goode was killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis, two completely different stories emerged from the same event. One side called her a domestic terrorist who weaponized her Honda Pilot, while the other saw a mother t...

This week, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz abruptly ended his bid for a third term. This episode was recorded four days earlier during a live conversation and, in hindsight, it explains exactly why this outcome was almost inevita...

This is the most downloaded episode of the year, resurfaced for the holiday week because the fallout is still unfolding in real time. Breaking down the Hollywood power struggle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni, with Ry...

This is the main event of Molly's Top PR Wins and Fails of 2025 series, recorded live on Substack (aired Friday, December 19) and built around the stories that truly owned the year: culture-war outrage that turned into real market impact, celebrity reputations getting torched (sometimes by their ow…