Oct. 22, 2025

If Your Group Chat Praises Hitler, You Don’t Have a PR Problem, You Have a You Problem

If Your Group Chat Praises Hitler, You Don’t Have a PR Problem, You Have a You Problem

When Politico dropped nearly 3,000 pages of leaked Telegram messages from the Young Republican National Federation, it revealed a disturbing culture behind closed doors. In this episode, Molly McPherson unpacks why private chats are never really private, how weak apologies deepen a crisis, and what this scandal teaches every leader about accountability, ethics, and reputation in the digital age.

Key Discussion Points:

  • The leaked Telegram chat that destroyed the Young Republican National Federation’s credibility
  • Why “kids will be kids” is not a defense when adults hold positions of power
  • The myth of online privacy and how “anonymous” messages are always traceable
  • How a values gap—what an organization says publicly vs. what it allows privately—leads to crisis
  • Dissecting the failed apologies that followed the leak
  • Molly’s five “PR truths” for digital-age leadership:
  • The difference between genuine accountability and PR spin

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00:00 - The Lie Of “Private” Chats

00:14 - What The Leak Revealed

01:54 - Naming Names And Consequences

04:26 - Party Responses And “Kids” Defense

06:08 - The Illusion Of Privacy Explained

08:10 - Values Gaps And Silent Approval

09:45 - Bad Apologies Decoded

11:12 - Five Non‑Negotiable PR Truths

WEBVTT

00:00:00.160 --> 00:00:02.720
Let's start with a familiar lie.

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No one will know about it.

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It's in a private chat.

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That sentence has buried more reputations than any headline.

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Last week it buried an entire wing of the Republican Party's youth movement.

00:00:14.000 --> 00:00:27.519
Politico dropped nearly 3,000 pages of leaked Telegram messages from the Young Republican National Federation, the group that's supposed to represent the next generation of GOP leadership.

00:00:27.519 --> 00:00:36.640
Inside that chat, racist jokes, anti-Semitic banter, praise for Hitler, references to rape as a punchline.

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It was like a dark corner of the internet, except they weren't anonymous trolls.

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These were people in office on payrolls and sitting on national committees.

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And when the story broke, the country's reaction split into.

00:00:49.920 --> 00:00:54.079
Some Republican leaders, many in the Democratic Party, condemned it.

00:00:54.079 --> 00:00:56.399
Some Republican leaders condemned it as well.

00:00:56.399 --> 00:00:58.560
But others, including Vice President J.D.

00:00:58.719 --> 00:01:04.480
Vance, shrugged and said that kids do stupid things, especially young boys.

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They tell edgy, offensive jokes.

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Like that's what kids do.

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But here's the problem: the obvious problem.

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These weren't kids.

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They were adults.

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And they were supposed to be the future of the Republican Party.

00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:27.920
So in today's episode of the PR Breakdown, let's talk about why anonymous chats are never anonymous, why private is a myth, and how a crisis like this becomes a case study in failed accountability.

00:01:27.920 --> 00:01:30.400
Let's go back to where it begins.

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The Telegram chat was called Restore YR War Room.

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That would be the Young Republicans.

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It ran for seven months, January through August, and involved at least 12 members of state-level young Republican groups.

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Let's go down the list.

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Do I have any shame naming these names?

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No, I do not.

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They are not minors.

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They are people who are involved in a public chat.

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And it was in the political article.

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Here we go.

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Peter Gwinta, New York's young Republican chair and chief of staff to Assembly member Mike Riley.

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He joked about loving Hitler and sending political opponents to the gas chamber.

00:02:05.519 --> 00:02:09.919
He was fired from his assembly job and resigned from his chair role.

00:02:09.919 --> 00:02:14.479
Bobby Walker, vice chair in New York, described rape as epic.

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He resigned soon after Political published the chat.

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Joe Meligno, general counsel for the same group, again, remember J.D.

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Vance called them kids, joked about the Hitler aesthetic and fixing the showers.

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He was removed from the organization.

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Annie K.

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Caddy, a national committee member and Gwynta's reported partner, said she was, quote, ready to watch people burn.

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She now faces removal from her national post.

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Alex Dwyer, chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, reacted with a smiley emoji to the Hitler messages.

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The entire Kansas chapter was dissolved.

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William Hendricks, Kansas vice chair, repeatedly used anti-black slurs.

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He was banned from future GOP youth roles in the state.

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Luke Mosaman, Arizona events chair, called for sexual violence against a political opponent.

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He lost his campaign job.

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Samuel Douglas, a Vermont state senator and head of the state's young Republicans, mocked Indian Americans.

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Vermont Governor Phil Scott demanded his resignation, and the state GOP suspended him.

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Brianna Douglas, his wife and communications chair, shared anti-Semitic stereotypes.

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She resigned amid the backlash.

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Michael Bartels, a senior advisor at the U.S.

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Small Business Administration, didn't post slurs but failed to intervene.

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He is now under internal review by the SBA.

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And Rachel Hope, an Arizona events director, shared white supremacist slogans.

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She was removed by state GOP leadership.

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Again, do any of them sound like kids?

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This was not a rogue intern problem.

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It was a network of people with power and a culture that told them hate was just another joke thread.

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When Politico broke the story, the Young Republican National Federation condemned the chat as vile and inexcusable, demanding resignations across the board.

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And as I said earlier, Kansas decided to shut its entire young Republican chapter down completely.

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That's not a slap on the wrist.

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That is a full organizational obituary.

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But then came the political response and it split down the middle.

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Some Republicans, like Representative Michael Lawler and Vermont's Governor Phil Scott, no surprise he was in the chat, called for immediate resignations.

00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:31.759
Others just tried to poo it away.

00:04:31.759 --> 00:04:35.680
In an interview on the Charlie Kirk show, Vice President J.D.

00:04:35.839 --> 00:04:40.720
Vance said this That kids do stupid things, especially young boys.

00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:42.959
They tell edgy, offensive jokes.

00:04:42.959 --> 00:04:44.720
Like that's what kids do.

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All right, maybe kids tell offensive jokes, but those weren't just offensive jokes, and those weren't kids.

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But then he warned his own children to assume some scumbag might leak your message one day.

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Now notice what's missing from that sentence.

00:05:00.319 --> 00:05:05.680
Any mention of not saying anything racist or anti-Semitic or violent things.

00:05:05.680 --> 00:05:13.839
This is again just trying to deflect and diminish what the chat said and did and what the implications from that chat were.

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That's not moral leadership.

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Right now, that's the administration's leadership.

00:05:18.399 --> 00:05:28.879
But if you were in that situation, and let's say you were a spokesperson at a company and you were dismissing it as kids, that's crisis management when it goes off the rails.

00:05:28.879 --> 00:05:33.920
Because those ages of the chat members between 24 and 35.

00:05:33.920 --> 00:05:37.920
The typical age of a college graduate, 21, 22.

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They weren't boys, they weren't kids, they were grown adults with salaries, staff, and influence.

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Calling them kids is PR code for please don't hold anyone accountable.

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But here's the rule in communication: you don't get to claim youth when you hold power.

00:05:54.480 --> 00:05:58.560
Once you step into leadership, just joking isn't an option.

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Even though they were considered young Republicans, many people might assume it's a bunch of college students.

00:06:03.839 --> 00:06:08.560
No, this is just Republicans who happen to be on the young side of adulthood.

00:06:08.560 --> 00:06:14.240
But let's talk about what this story really exposes, and that's the illusion of privacy.

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Every private chat is one screenshot away from public.

00:06:18.480 --> 00:06:24.240
And every person who laughs along at a slur is already building their own scandal in slow motion.

00:06:24.240 --> 00:06:29.759
I can tell you, recently I worked with a client who went through this issue.

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They hired me because there was a potential that their name could be leaked in a private chat that was on a website that I never even heard of.

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And in the call, other websites were mentioned, some that I definitely knew about, but many I had never heard of them.

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These types of websites, you think if most people in the mainstream don't even hear about them and everyone is anonymous, well, it's never going to get out.

00:06:52.319 --> 00:07:00.480
But yes, there are sometimes leaks or breaches, but also people can triangulate, and that's what happened to the person who I was talking to.

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Their name wasn't leaked because of some cyber hack or cyber breach.

00:07:05.120 --> 00:07:12.560
It was leaked because someone triangulated who they were by looking at past chats and past comments.

00:07:12.560 --> 00:07:22.079
And the issue is this person thought that their name and business and everything that they're affiliated would fall apart simply because of this leak.

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And the person who I was talking to was a very reasonable person.

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And it was someone who also admitted, I wouldn't normally say these things, which is the whole point.

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These young Republicans didn't get caught because they slipped up once.

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They got caught because they believed privacy meant protection.

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When people get into a group like this, it forms a community.

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And if that community has an assumption of animidity, people can say things they wouldn't normally say out in the light.

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Assumed privacy does not mean protection, it means delayed exposure.

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When people think no one is really watching, that's when you find out who they really are.

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In PR terms, this is called a values gap.

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The difference between what an organization says publicly and what it tolerates privately.

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Every brand, every campaign, every company has one, or they should at least.

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And when the gap gets too wide, it collapses.

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Because the internet doesn't just expose what you say, it reveals what you allow.

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Those seven months of chat logs, they weren't just racist and cruel.

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They were normal.

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And that's the terrifying part.

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No one said stop.

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No one said that's wrong.

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They just kept typing.

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Silence wasn't by accident, it was approval.

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And then came the apologies.

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If you've ever wanted a crash course and what not to say after a scandal or PR crisis, last week was it.

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Let's break down some of them.

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Peter Gwinta, he was the name I mentioned at the beginning.

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He was the New York young Republican chair and chief of staff to Assembly member Mike Riley.

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He's the one who joked about loving Hitler.

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He said, quote, I'm sorry to those offended by the inexcusable language found in our private chat, end quote.

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Translation.

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Oh my gosh, I'm sorry to those offended.

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And he talked about Hitler.

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That is such a bad apology.

00:09:13.519 --> 00:09:19.279
Bobby Walker, vice chair in New York, he's the one who described rape as, quote, epic.

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He had to resign.

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His apology, he said the logs, quote, might have been taken out of context, but added that he's committed to moving forward with greater care, end quote.

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Translation, I'd like to apologize without admitting guilt.

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And one of the most common phrases, this was obtained to inflict harm.

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In other words, the translation, the real victim is me.

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Every one of the statements affiliated with this chat, and there could be more that come out, fail the crisis test.

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Because a real apology requires naming the behavior.

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I made racist and anti-Semitic remarks, naming the harm.

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I hurt specific communities and betrayed public trust, accepting the consequence.

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I resigned from my role, committing to change.

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Here's how I'll repair the damage within there, the indestructible PR framework.

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Own it, explain it, promise it.

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If it doesn't include it, it's not an apology.

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It's a press release.

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Now let's get practical.

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Here are five PR truths that should be in the Bible of every organization in America.

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One, privacy is temporary.

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Every group chat is one screenshot away from daylight.

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Right like it will leak because it will.

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Two, silence is consent.

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If you read, if you sit in a room or a thread where racism or hate is the norm, you are a part of it.

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Three, cancel culture isn't real.

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Accountability is.

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Losing a job for praising Hitler isn't cancellation.

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That's consequence.

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Four, culture beats strategy.

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You can have the best messaging plan in the world, but if your internal culture is rotten, the public will find out.

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And five, screenshots outlive careers.

00:11:03.279 --> 00:11:09.679
You can delete a post, but you can't delete a screenshot, especially when someone else has it in their phone.

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And that's not paranoia, it's permanence.

00:11:13.200 --> 00:11:17.840
So the lesson here isn't just for the GOP, it's for anyone leading in the digital age.

00:11:17.840 --> 00:11:19.120
Already lost it.

00:11:19.120 --> 00:11:23.600
If your defense is, we were just joking, you're not leading, you're deflecting.

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Leadership isn't what you post on social media, it's what you tolerate when no one's watching.

00:11:28.399 --> 00:11:37.919
So here's your breakdown Anonymous chats are never anonymous, accountability is not optional, and private is not a place, it's a delay.

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And when that delay ends, the truth always shows up.

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That's all for this week on the podcast.

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Thanks so much for listening.

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Bye for now.