Trump After the Midterms: Chasing Headlines, Not Voters

0:00Susie Wiles out. But is it just me or does it feel like President Trump is a little more wily of light? What do I mean? Well, stay and listen to this week's podcast.

0:17Hey there, welcome back to the PR Breakdown podcast. I'm your host, Molly McPherson. We are going to break down some of the things that we've been seeing from President Trump this week. Now, first, full transparency, the idea behind this topic did not come from me. It came from a reporter, someone who reached out, a White House correspondent. They wanted to ask me about Trump's recent moves. And the more that I thought about it and I reflected back on some of the posts that I made on social over the week, I thought, oh, this is kind of interesting. Because, you know, here on this channel, we love looking at moves.

0:51Here's my thesis. Since the election, President Trump has not changed the subject, the talking points. He's just changed the channel. What do I mean? Recently, we had President Trump with Dana White at the briefing room podium. Not the former spokesperson for the Pentagon, Dana White, but UFC's Dana White. So that happened on Monday. But also what happened, of course, we had on Tuesday, November 3rd, we had Democrats winning the House and the Senate. We have the blue tsunami. But within a week, we have a ballroom tour. We have, as I mentioned, Susie Wiley's out. And as I mentioned, now a UFC boss at a podium.

1:38Every single one of those items, a headline. Trump got his headline. That is what Trump is about. So my point today, President Trump is not out to win voters anymore. He's out to win the news cycle. But what it does win back for him is what he cares about, headlines. Now let's walk through the week because the order of the week tells the story. Now, as I mentioned, on November 3rd, we had the midterms. Democrats take the House and the Senate. Then on Wednesday, November 4th, we have the first press appearance after the election where he discusses the ballroom construction. Friday, November 6th, we have the ultimate Friday afternoon news dump.

2:25Susie Wiles is out as chief of staff. Stephen Miller is in. Saturday, November 7th, on Truth Social, there's a post where President Trump said that UFC CEO Dana White would be a great choice for the press secretary job. The internet picked up on that at first, and I think it was like a collective head scratch. But then it became a story in the news cycle for a couple days. Then on Sunday, November 8th, late, he says that he was only kidding. Monday, November 9th, the surprise briefing room appearance with White. Now, I posted to social media because I've been following the Dana White story. and one of the reasons why I had interest in it.

3:14I am a mother of a Gen Z son who's very much into UFC. He does a lot of content around UFC. So I've had a lot of conversations with him about it. I find UFC like, you know, I kind of look at it with my eyes closed. But he did a piece on Dana White. So I've done a deep dive on Dana White with my son. As soon as I heard the news about Dana White, I'm like, it's impossible that that would ever be the case because Dana White is incredibly busy growing UFC, and it is growing. Why on earth would he ever stop what he's doing to be the press secretary? Now, the press secretary, people think, oh, glitz, you know, you're on camera every day, you're in the press every day, that it's a big, big job.

4:00But at the heart of it, it's an admin job. You're sitting working in the White House doing admin. You have your press team, and you're working with reporters, but it's a grind of a daily job. Not in a million years would he ever even consider that job. But Dana White was asked about it over in London and I got to give him credit. He did a pretty good job having to spin what's going on because you know that he was taking a hit in the octagon UFC. He had no idea what was going on, but he was doing the duty of Trump and thought, okay, he probably came up with something. Well, I'm going to the White House.

4:39I'm going to be there on Monday. So who knows if he just said that at the presser and then Trump had to bring him out and make sure that he was there, which honestly I think is the case because right away I thought the whole thing smelled and there's no way. And sure enough, the internet finds out that there was a Dana White, a female who was a spokesperson in his first administration for the Pentagon, not the Department of War. So someone probably floated that name out there. as a very reasonable press secretary. And Trump in his brain immediately went to the Dana White that he's familiar with.

5:14The next topic is the ballroom. So the day after losing Congress, he gave reporters a construction tour. And when I saw that, and you can see here, the photo of Trump signing the steel beam, he talked for nearly 20 minutes about the building details. And with the signing of the beam, when I saw that, I thought, well, this is Trump being Trump. This is Trump being real estate mogul Trump. I'm thinking New York. You think of Trump Tower. That's who he is. Trump wants to build. Trump wants real estate. That's why he's always out there building an arc or building a golf course. He wants to build because that's what he's reverting back to.

6:00That's what he does. he doesn't want to govern. He wants to build and make money while he's building. So it's no surprise that his default would be to do what he naturally does. I think that's why we're seeing a lot of it. And he also said in there that the work is relaxing and he loves construction. There it is. That's really what drives him. So he did take some questions that Republicans would have won if he had been on the ballot. But as we've seen in a lot of press accounts that the midterm voters said that they thought that he was focused on the wrong issues. And honestly, the tour of the ballroom, I think, confirms the worry because that's exactly what he's focused on.

6:41Trump says that$400 million for that ballroom was raised by donors and his own money. And Reuters did a study that he mentioned the ballroom at least 40 times in 2026, as of late May. we can get distracted from a lot of other stories out there, a lot of news stories out there. I mean, certainly like ICE, the war, Pete Hegseth, you know, other members of cabinet like speaking out. But if you really follow Trump and what Trump cares about, it's like golf courses and the ballroom. Now, the next is the swap that happened on Friday, last Friday. Swapping a chief of staff after a loss sends a signal.

7:28And what signal does this send for Trump? Well, that it's someone else's fault. Someone else was responsible for it. It wasn't him. Now, to give Trump a little bit of a break on this, this is a move that we see all the time. We see it in business all the time. We see it in sports all the time. You lose. We thought you're going to do a great job. We thought you'd get us to the World Series or to the Super Bowl.

7:51You 2024 campaign and was widely seen as someone who is that tempering force for Trump's impulses. But now we have Stephen Miller in. And Stephen Miller is a guy who seems like he's ramping and amping up Trump. So we will likely see a different side of Trump or we'll see Stephen Miller try to push more aggressive policies out there. Of course, he's the person behind these hardline immigration policies that really blew up in the face of the Republicans because he even, Trump himself, said on 60 Minutes that he felt that it went a little too far. But what we need to pay attention to is moving out the person known for slowing him down tells you the direction for the next two years.

8:48And now back to Dana White for just a moment. I think the sign of Dana White was less about a staffing decision and more about a casting reveal. I think it's reasonable to assume that some memo, some person said Dana White and Trump's brain immediately defaulted to the Dana White that he knows. And you see this in the True Social post. He's talking about the fight, the fight. And he asked White to bring UFC fighters along as his assistants. Now, when he posted it, he posted it from his golf club in Florida on Saturday. So his mind was probably moving, you know, a million miles an hour. But then he had to walk back from it because it looked clearly that someone in the White House meant for the different Dana White.

9:40And he has spent the last few days and it now is a news cycle story saying that he was just kidding. It was a part of a bit. But what it also does is it does keep the story alive, but he is walking a fine line there because most people know it was a massive, massive mistake. But on the other hand, it did give him more news cycle. and now Dana White in the briefing room. And also Dana White was selling the fight. You know, the message was, we're in the fight. We're in the fight. Dana White also gets a plug for UFC. So I would say both of them, Trump and Dana White, probably look at it as a win-win.

10:17Now, follow me here into another piece of the Trump persona. Trump at the podium in the briefing room, you know, with the press. optics. The press core in the room is like an audience. It hasn't been in conversation for a while, but we have to remember this, that Trump comes from The Apprentice. The Apprentice program was about creating these explosive moments. You're fired. You're fired. And he's talking down to people. And why these celebrities would sit and choose to be spoken to that way by Trump, I guess anything in the name of publicity. But think of Susie Wiles like as a contestant on The Apprentice.

11:07It's very similar, right? So it was so rushed of a presser that the staff didn't even have time to put the presidential seal on the lectern. And the press assistant told reporters over the loudspeaker to take their seats like right now, because this was happening like in a moment's notice. And reporters asked the White House who'd win a cage match between Trump and Biden. That's the show. And that's the show working. Trump also took about 30 minutes for real questions about Hegseth, about Iran, about Ukraine. He had to do that, right? Otherwise, it would have been a ridiculous press moment. But it was a moment and it was a moment made for the cameras for an audience.

11:55So Dana White said on November 9th, quote, I have zero political aspirations, end quote. No kidding. Not for a moment did anyone think that you did. Also, Dana White, on November 9th, I don't tell the president no to anything. He was being the dutiful follower of Trump. He just went along with it. That is a guy who knows what to do when you're in the ring or when you're in the octagon. But here we are as of November 10th after the presser. We don't have a press secretary. And by the time this publishes, I guarantee you we still will not have a press secretary. In reality television, there's no such thing as a bad episode, only a boring one.

12:41This is The Apprentice playbook. The ratings have dropped. the Republicans were voted out. So what happens? You bring in a new cast member and you have to fire someone. We are watching an episode of The Apprentice. The goal for Trump is to never let the audience look away. A loss is a slow episode. So you manufacture a cliffhanger. Trump on 60 Minutes on Sunday night is after NFL or sandwich in between NFL Sunday. He knows he's going to get people talking about him on Monday. And that's exactly what happened. He's producing the news, not reacting to it. So for Trump, because he was defeated, repudiated is the word that we've heard a lot.

13:31He doesn't look at that as a loss anymore because that's approval. And he doesn't want to admit that people don't approve of him anymore. So now he's just seeking attention, which is something he's very, very good at. So for the average person out there, for anyone who is making press or in the press, if you're in business, we can look at what happened with NVIDIA. We have a CEO who was found to have a relationship with an alleged spy. We're looking at a lack of accountability. Certainly there was a memo that came out where he took accountability for what happened, not only to the people in Amitya, but also to his wife and to his two kids.

14:18And he was taking accountability now. And the board came out with a statement as well, stating that they're now looking into it and they're on it. But prior to that, they weren't. They were trying to deflect and dodge. That gives you about a week in this news cycle, but it's accountability that buys you a comeback. And without accountability, it's going to keep going and going and going. You've heard me talk a lot about my indestructible PR card, if you will. Own it, explain it, promise it. It is the framework that works because it brings you towards accountability, which gets you through the crisis, which makes you indestructible.

15:03Case in point, Obama, when he was in the same position as Trump is now in 2010, he called it a shellacking. President Bush in 2006 called it a thumping. Both named the loss. A Democratic president cedes to the Republicans. A Republican president cedes to Democrats. They took accountability there. Trump blamed others. He did it in 2018, too. It's not a one-off that he's using the same playbook. It's a pattern. The public will always forgive a loss. They'll always forgive a mistake in general, like the public in general. But what they don't forgive is acting like it didn't happen. Blame always feels cheap, even if it's coming from the president, even if it's coming from Trump and it always costs you later.

15:57But because Trump is performing, he doesn't quite see it like that. So now we're entering the lame duck years for President Trump. A lame duck president loses legislative power, but this one, President Trump will make up for it with media power. A lot of people are talking about the fear of what's going to happen next with emigration. with war, with escalation. Those are valid fears, especially with Stephen Miller now as chief of staff. But when it comes to Trump, I think what we're going to see is more spectacle, not less. The stage is one thing he still controls. There's going to be more surprise appearances, big announcements, fewer real briefings.

16:49Who knows how long we'll go without a press secretary. And the question isn't whether he'll dominate the news cycle. He will. It's whether everyone is persuaded to believe it. So the takeaway for everyone else who's not President Trump, every leader has their version of a ballroom. Don't hide in yours. It's a safe place. People want to go where they know. Knowledge is safety. Leaders, especially the leaders who are in the spotlight, when there's a lot of scrutiny, they want to shield themselves in a place of safety. That's why Trump is spending a lot of time talking about things that he's building and the ballroom.

17:37Whatever your ballroom is, don't hide in it. Whatever your shiny project is that you'd rather talk about than talking about the hard thing. It can help you in the short term, but it won't in the long term. If you listen to this podcast, you've heard me say this plenty of times. The harder decision invariably is always the right one. That's true for presidents. It's true for leaders. It's true for parents telling your kids. With faced with a decision, the harder of the two is always the right decision. I want to thank you so much for joining me this week on the podcast. As always, you can follow me on social media and Substack.

18:16I am in the app every single day talking in notes or to my community. So please join me there. If you work in communications strategy or you're a member of senior leadership or any leadership at a company and you are working with a boss who makes things a little crazy that tend to bleed out in the news cycle, then you want to join me for my special training on Substack. It's a members only session where I'm going to guide you through my playbook, how I help other communicators and other strategists and leaders get through their crazy cycles, if you will. So all you need to do is head over to my Substack and you can find more information there.

18:59That's all for this week on the podcast. Thanks for joining me. Bye for now.

19:08Thank you.