As we explained in yesterday’s VIP column, this isn’t a Nixon-esque Enemies List or a moral judgment, but an outcome-based PR critique: Among all the political brands (i.e., politicians, activists, movements, parties, organizations, countries, etc.) whose reputation collapsed most dramatically in 2025?
We’re not asking who received the most negative press or who we dislike the most; we’re asking whose political brand fell the farthest. It’s less a question of magnitude than a measurement of distance.
This excludes Joe Biden, because his reputation died on June 27, 2024, when his brain disintegrated on national TV. And it excludes Jeffrey Epstein, because his name was already garbage. (Now, he’s more famous garbage.)
A loser can’t lose what he never had.
It also excludes the Democratic Party, because their reputational nosedive primarily occurred in 2024, with Biden receiving a 34% approval rating in his final full month in office. The first half of 2025 was brutal for the Dems — and by some metrics, the bleeding still continues — but buoyed by November victories in Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City, the Dems are optimistic about the 2026 midterms.
So here’s the telltale sign of what to look for: A dramatic fall from grace — with someone’s reputation flipping from an asset to a liability. Before, their PR brand enhanced their status. Their name preceded them, opening doors and elevating their standing. It had a halo effect.
Now it’s an anchor dragging them down.
Before we reveal the top (bottom?) three, here are the honorable mentions:
Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.) — On Jan. 1, 2025, Gov. Walz was on the shortlist of Democratic 2028 presidential frontrunners. And for the first few months that followed, his star glowed even brighter: As the Dems fretted over the loss of the white male vote, Walz seemed like the perfect compromise. (Technically a white man, but effeminate/nonthreatening enough to “pass.”) But his days as “America’s coach” are over: After the extent of the Somali fraud epidemic was revealed, Walz went from a presidential frontrunner to the single most scandal-scarred governor in the nation. Forget about the White House; he’ll have to scratch and claw to survive reelection.
His political career is now hanging by a string, which — if you know Walz’s nickname — is entirely appropriate.
The Trans Movement — Had it followed sane PR advice, it would’ve pursued the middle ground and consolidated its gains during the #MeToo and/or anti-patriarchy uproar of the 2010s: acceptance, compassion, and legal protections for trans adults. Instead, it focused on children, championing puberty blockers (with or without parents’ permission); deplatforming Americans from social media platforms for using the “wrong” pronouns; allowing biological men into girls’ bathrooms; awarding championship medals to biological men in women’s sports; and declaring that all gender differences were a social construct. It greedily overreached, and it triggered a backlash that still hasn’t subsided.
Before Donald Trump’s win in 2024, the pro-trans movement was led by a fierce army of digital activists, capable of banning “offenders” from YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter, deplatforming and demonetizing their ideological enemies. Posting scientific facts about gender distinctions could literally get you fired! Their threats were backed with action.
It got to the point where naïve kids would wonder if they were bigots or transphobic because they (gasp!) didn’t want to date a “girl” who has a penis.
After Trump’s win, the trans movement was neutered (so to speak): The pronoun police were depowered, J.K. Rowling delivered a spellbinding rebuke to her witchy critics, Trump issued an executive order that banned biological men from women’s sports, and Penn swimmer Lia Thomas even had his/her swimming records erased.
Almost overnight, the trans movement collapsed.
Even the Democrats have abandoned the trans movement, dismissing it as a distraction, focusing instead on the so-called “affordability crisis.” No other U.S.-based political movement lost more net ground in 2025.
Iran — It began the year as a regional superpower in the Middle East, always ready to rattle its saber, unleash its terrorist proxies, and complete its nuclear weapons program. At a moment’s notice, it could wreck the global petro market, torpedoing the economies of Europe, Asia, and North America.
It ended the year with large craters on the ground, a nuclear program under rubble, dead allies, a moribund economy, and not enough water for its people to drink.
In a region where reputation and “saving face” is all-important, Iran was utterly humiliated on the global stage, with Israel and America playing Whack-a-Mole from the sky, obliterating Iranian military sites with impunity. Never before had Iran’s Mullahs looked so pathetic and impotent.
It went from “Death to America” to “Wow, we have lots of new holes everywhere.”
When a regime projects power to survive, weakness is an existential threat.
Additionally, a major taboo was broken: Bombing missions over Tehran’s airspace have now been normalized. Despite the hysterics of pundits like Tucker Carlson, bombing Iran didn’t lead to World War III. Thousands of Americans — and millions of people — didn’t die.
The only things that died were the Iranian nuclear program and the Mullahs’ credibility.
In retrospect, Carlson’s warning was juuuust a wee bit over the top:
Iran may not have nukes, but it has a fearsome arsenal of ballistic missiles, many of which are aimed at US military installations in the Gulf, as well as at our allies and at critical energy infrastructure. The first week of a war with Iran could easily kill thousands of Americans. It could also collapse our economy, as surging oil prices trigger unmanageable inflation. Consider the effects of $30 gasoline.
But the second week of the war could be even worse. Iran isn’t Iraq or Libya, or even North Korea. While it’s often described as a rogue state, Iran has powerful allies. It’s now part of a global bloc called BRICS, which represents the majority of the world’s landmass, population, economy and military power. Iran has extensive military ties with Russia. It sells the overwhelming majority of its oil exports to China. Iran isn’t alone. An attack on Iran could very easily become a world war. We’d lose.
For Iran, 2025 was as bad as a Tucker Carlson prediction.
Sorry, fellas. Better luck to Tim Walz, the trans movement, and Iran in 2026. Work a little harder, guys, and you can make next year’s big list! (I believe in you.)
Now, without any further ado, here are the three biggest PR losers of the year:
Third Place: Elon Musk — When you contrast Musk’s actions against the viciousness of his detractors, it’s stunning. He literally gets worse press — and exponentially more hate — than killers like Luigi Magione. The gap between the man and his reputation (brand) is extraordinary.
It’s probably the most lopsided in modern PR history.
He revolutionized digital payments, built the electric car industry, saved the U.S. space program, spent billions to protect free speech, and helped create the A.I. boom by cofounding OpenAI, and now he has one of the most toxic brands in all of politics. At this point, an endorsement from Musk would do more harm than good.
It certainly hurt the Republicans in Wisconsin. One of the turning points in the GOP’s ill-fated state supreme court race was when the Dems pivoted to attacking Musk, making him the centerpiece of their campaign.
In Nov. 2024, Trump narrowly won Wisconsin. By April 2025, with Musk personally leading the charge on the campaign trail, the Republicans lost by 10 points.
Musk annoyed much of the left when he campaigned for Trump in 2024. But 2025 was the year its hatred kicked into overdrive, because Musk got his hands on their precious government under the auspices of DOGE.
Hooboy!
Suddenly, liberals were accusing Musk of murdering the poor, plundering the treasury, and stealing national secrets. The world’s richest man was trying his damnedest to save the taxpayers money, working around-the-clock (for free!) with his DOGE team, and the Dems treated him like he was Satan incarnate. Other than Trump himself, no one was attacked as cruelly or as personally.
Virtually every single Tesla dealership had to deal with mobs of leftwing protestors. Vandals were literally setting fire to his cars! Dopey celebs were dumping their Teslas over “white supremacy,” replacing them with… Volkswagens?
The irony was unreal.
(Of course, Musk’s so-called “Nazi salute” on Jan. 20, 2025, didn’t help either.)
But conservatives still had his back until June 5. That’s when Musk’s displeasure with Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” led to an X tirade that culminated with the taunt:
Time to drop the really big bomb:
@realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public.
Have a nice day, DJT!
And just like that, the guy who spent $270 million to help get Trump elected was persona non grata from the White House.
Towards the end of 2025, Musk’s chilly relationship with the White House began to thaw. Instead of following through with his threat to launch a third party, he’s signaled a willingness to fund GOP candidates in the 2026 midterms. And that’s very good news for both the GOP and Musk’s reputation: Even the world’s richest man needs someone to have his back.
Still, for Musk’s brand, 2025 was a killer. Mostly via self-inflicted wounds, he greatly diminished himself.
Second Place: Israel — What it lost in PR it won in spades on the battlefield: By the time 2025 came to a close, Israel was safer, its enemies weaker, and its status in the Middle East at an all-time high.
But everywhere else, Israel’s reputation took a pounding. From Europe through America and across the planet, it was one PR misstep after another. Israel is now one of the most hated countries in the Western world.
Wearing a yarmulke, the Star of David, or pro-Israel attire could get you hospitalized, arrested, or killed.
It’s ironic: For all the stereotypes about Jews running Hollywood and controlling the media, the truth is that Israel is astonishingly daft at PR. (Shortly before his death, Charlie Kirk wrote an outstanding analysis of Israel’s PR woes. Prime Minister Netanyahu would be wise to heed Kirk’s advice.)
We’ve reached the point where Vladimir Putin of Russia, Xi Jinping of China, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, and Seyyed Ali Khamenei of Iran could be walking down the street in liberal America, and leftists would rush past them to throw eggs at Benjamin Netanyahu. Today’s liberals don’t simply oppose Israel’s policies — they have a frothing, visceral hatred for the Jewish state.
According to the left, Israel is genocidal and thus the spiritual heirs of the Nazis.
In all the Western world, Israel has only one ally left: the Republican Party. (And some MAGA-aligned influencers are working feverishly to change that.)
But so far, not only is it not working, but the opposite is true: Republican support for Israel actually grew in 2025. As Gallup reported, GOP support for Israel’s war in Gaza increased by 5 points between Sept. 2024 and July 2025, rising from 66% to 71%. And earlier this month, 86.7% of Turning Point USA attendees named Israel an American ally, with 1 in 3 crowning it America’s “top ally.”
This is a Godsend for Israel, because the Republican Party is its last friend in the West.
Meanwhile, you know who had an excellent year in PR? Saidi Arabia, Sunni billionaires, and Qatar. Not only are they hosting comedy concerts, promoting sports, and enticing new homebuyers, they’ve even “encouraged” some of America’s top influencers to deny the danger of radical Islam, insisting that the real enemy is Israel.
No matter how hard the GOP tries to make “radical Islam” happen, the base doesn’t care about it.
We are way more concerned about Israel.
You can deny reality and scream about Tucker, but the party can no longer be governed by those who refuse to acknowledge the Zionist…
— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) December 27, 2025
Yessir, whoever Qatar and Saudi Arabia have been paying for PR help has done a helluva job.
(Whomever THAT might be. ‘Cause I don’t know for a fact that Carlson or Owens pocketed millions in Sunni money; I’m just asking questions.)
First Place: Attorney General Pam Bondi — She began the year red-hot, as the most battle-tested, boots-on-the-ground, take-no-prisoners member of the Trump cabinet. For eight long years, Pam Bondi was the attorney general of Florida, one of America’s most populous states. (And if you know anything about Florida Man, you know that ain’t a dull job.)
Unlike someone like, say, Pete Hegseth, Bondi had a minimal learning curve: She should’ve known what she was doing from the get-go. We fully expected her to hit the ground running — and start collecting legal victories ASAP.
Instead, she ran straight into the ground.
And now she’s the least popular member of Trump’s cabinet. (By a landslide, too.) According to some metrics, her approval rating dropped by nearly 50 points!
Musk’s X post didn’t help, but it was Bondi’s bungling of the Epstein investigation that pushed the story onto the front page of newspapers across the country. She overpromised, underdelivered, and elevated the Epstein sideshow into the main event. It was a textbook PR example of what not to do.
No member of Trump’s cabinet has been responsible for more negative press.
And unfortunately, lots of her bad press is deserved. Not just the Epstein saga, but there’s been embarrassing setbacks in multiple high-profile cases: Leita James, James Comey — even with the failed indictment of a sandwich-chucker!
(There’s an old legal joke that a grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. Maybe so, but the Bondi Justice Department is too incompetent to indict the guy who throws it.)
When 2025 began, Bondi had it all: She’s beautiful, poised, photogenic, and confident. Of all the members of Trump’s cabinet, she was the most likely to be a breakthrough star. With her looks, brains, experience, and platform, she could’ve been a role model for American women — and the perfect GOP clapback to the DEI hires of the Dems, i.e., Joe Biden choosing Kamala Harris simply because he pledged to pick a woman: Unlike them, we choose the person who’s the best for the job.
The Republican Party is the party of merit, competency, and high standards!
But you can’t make a competency argument for an incompetent person. Bondi’s actions killed that storyline.
If she were scoring victories while eating bad press, that would be one thing. But she’s getting bad press while eating loss after loss. By a considerable margin, she’s the biggest PR loser of 2025.
What an unbelievable disappointment.
It’s time for her to go.
One Last Thing: The PJ Media YUUUGE Christmas/New Year sale is here — offering readers a whopping 74% discount(!) with the code MERRY74. Click here ASAP to take advantage while it lasts… because it won’t last long!
As a PJ Media VIP member, you’ll receive exclusive access to our behind-the-paywall content, commentating privileges, and an ad-free experience. VIP Gold gets you the same level of “insider access” across our entire family of sites (PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, twitchy, Hot Air, and Bearing Arms). That means: More stories, more videos, more content, more fun, more conservatism, more EVERYTHING!
And if you’re already a VIP member and want to share the gift of PJ Media with a friend or loved one, use the MERRY74 code and click here.
Happy Holidays!
