Ryan Lizza on Olivia Nuzzi, RFK Jr, and the Substack-ification of a scandal

26:24Do you think that if you weren't on Substack, if there wasn't Substack, you would have written what you wrote about Olivia? I don't know. I mean, I guess we're just not—it's not even—is it really a question, though? Because there would have been something, right? I mean, we're in a world where— You could have had a blog. You could have had a blog. I mean, there are thousands of paid subscribers that I had who know my Snubstack largely from things like I published these two pieces by Judge Michael Ludig, right? A lot of people who came to me last year were big Ludig fans and loved those pieces.

27:02Other people are people who have been following my political coverage for a long time. And, you know, some of them sent me notes like, what is this? What are you doing? This is like I want to I want you to go back to talking about like the Supreme Court with Michael Ludig and, you know, in doing Substack Lives with, you know, with people who are talking about the Trump administration. So there's a risk in making like this the thing that that Substack is known for. And it's going to be tricky to sort of turn the corner away from this and move on to, you know, the kind of journalism that, you know, I want to get back to.

27:39That's one of the things that we wanted to ask you about, though, Ryan. Clearly, you've thought about, you know, having to make the pivot back to doing what you were doing before, which is, you know, more of Washington reporting that doesn't involve you as a character in the story. And I guess as a part of that question, like, when do you see this series kind of ending? It should have ended last week, but I just I've had a lot of trouble writing this last piece. And I was frankly trying to get it done before we had this conversation today. so we could talk about it. Some of the stuff I've talked about with you guys will be at that piece.

28:14But I really want to try hard, and I don't think I've successfully done it in this conversation, but I want to end this on not talking about the salacious stuff. I tried to be clear in one of the early pieces that this was not a sex scandal. This was a journalism scandal. And there were really important things I needed to say about my ex. And, you know, she's suffered enough. And I have nothing, you know, left to say about that part of the story. But unfortunately, and this was by design, when she sort of blew me up in 2024, it turned this thing into a scandal about me and her. And the person who has just been sort of like floating above it all is this very influential, important cabinet secretary who has done some things that I think deserve more scrutiny.

29:13And I'd like to sort of, with this last piece, bring it back to him and why some of the things that I've learned in the course of this bizarre story, what they reveal about his recklessness. I mean, this is someone who is bringing back polio and measles and whooping cough, is making a series of decisions at HHS that are killing people. And he very effectively used Olivia to escape scrutiny in this whole sordid drama. And I admit that I've played a little bit of a role in that because some of the things I had to say contributed to this being like, you know, this catfight between me and Olivia. And I do want to take it back to a focus on him and a focus on how the media failed in this story.

30:08And, you know, in some ways, it's the most important piece to get right. So that's why some of these things have been on my mind in our conversation today. Ryan, have you talked to him or anybody in his team at all? Like, have you engaged them at all? Like, do you reach out to them for comment or anything like that? I haven't. I just, it would be a waste of time. It's a good question. But no, he's, and every reporter that has tried to get anything from HHS has just, you know, they just shut down. I mean, we're living in a world where you pay no price for that anymore. So I have not reached out to him.

30:40The last communication I had with him was when he called me, I didn't answer the phone, and he texted me, apologies, but dial. He did some things that I think are important to get some more mainstream media attention on. What in particular? What do you think? Because I think you're right. It's been covered as kind of a salacious tabloid story. What here isn't that? You know, Olivia's book did reveal something really important, something I knew, but that she put some important details on. She had a conversation with him as a piece by Isabella Simonetti, who was working with me as an anonymous source to get some of this information out in the run up to the election.

31:21Wall Street Journal reporter. He freaked out about that. And he freaked out about the fact that I was calling around telling people that I was going to write about this for Politico. And he had a conversation with Olivia and said, according to her book, he just needed to get past the election. And he had two concerns. One was about his wife. If people knew the serious, if she knew how serious the relationship was with Olivia, that it wasn't just sexual, but it was emotional, that she might leave him. And he didn't want that to happen. And the second thing was about his relationship with Donald Trump.

31:57It was precarious at that point. Trump wasn't sure about this Maha bullshit. He wasn't sure about Kennedy. Kennedy had a terrible reputation. And I believe this, and Olivia writes in her book, and I think this is something that's for the most part true, he communicated that to her, told her that she had to take a bullet for him. and the bullet was actually not at Olivia. It was at me. And he ordered her to file a false restraining order against me in D.C. Superior Court. Okay. And that's your interpretation. That is not my interpretation. That is based on two sources who had contemporaneous conversations with Olivia after she got off the phone with him.

32:41That's in the series. Okay. It's not an interpretation. And we were prepared to present this in court back on October 15th. And then in November, when the date got changed of 2024, and of course, she was never going to subject herself to that kind of questioning. And she threw out the case. That's a big deal. That's a big deal. Kennedy used Olivia to kill reporting in the run up to the election to save his marriage and to more importantly, to save his relationship with Trump. Within days of being elected, Olivia then withdrew the restraining order application. To me, that's a big deal. Okay. Now, maybe he'll come out and say, that's bullshit.

33:23Olivia lied. I didn't tell her to do that. You know, whatever his part of the story is, it's important to hear it. Because to your point, Ben, my information is based on two people close to Olivia who talked to her after that conversation happened, right? So I wasn't on the call. But that's a big, important story in my mind. And I've been kind of shocked that the media hasn't pursued it aggressively. Now, maybe they just can't get anything out of him. Maybe Olivia is, to a large extent, she's still protecting him. Maybe she's sort of, you know, tried to shut it down, said it's not true, although I haven't seen her say that publicly.

33:58So that to me is a big deal. The fact that he told Olivia that he was using psychedelics and using ketamine. He's a former addict. That's a big deal. He runs the FDA. There are important policy decisions he has to make on psychedelics and ketamine. According to Olivia, he was using both of them as recently as 2024. He engaged in an insanely reckless pattern of behavior with her. And, you know, and this is one of those things, frankly, I've wrestled with how much to disclose because, you know, this stuff is extremely salacious and I got a lot of shit for releasing that poem. But this guy was running for president, was on this like high wire and was engaging in this like insanely reckless relationship, sending information that could have, you know, damaged him, damaged the campaign, damaged Trump, could have been used for blackmail if it got in the hands of a foreign security service.

35:01None of this came out in the confirmation hearings. Like, you know, to me, that's all big, important stuff about him. Yeah. To do the thing that you've criticized about the media, I want to turn this back to you. I'm curious, what have people in your life thought about you putting this out there? Like, you know, I became aware of this because somebody who I think we mutually talked to was like, have you seen in Washington? I was like, have you seen this? I'm curious what people in your life, both professionally and personally, have thought about this? It's been polarizing. I mean, I think one thing that I didn't consider enough was how it was going to affect some people that I'm personally close to.

35:40I mean, just to be perfectly candid, it's been extremely difficult for my partner. You know, nobody wants their partner to be spending all this much time writing about a previous relationship. You know, some very close friends told me not to do it. You know, one of my best friends who's a journalist, you guys know, and whose opinion I take very seriously was just like, do not do this. It can't, it won't end well. And, you know, you'll always be known for this story. And, you know, my view was like, it was too late. I was already going to be known for this in some way. But there are other friends and other family members who were, you know, I guess I would call them the hawks who were like, you absolutely have to do this.

36:28People, you know, frankly, who were disgusted and appalled by what Olivia did, knew the whole story, and for over a year have been telling me, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you need to tell your side, you haven't told your side. A friend of mine called, I was talking to them the other day about some Substack stuff, and she was just like, first, I got to talk to you about this series. I don't think you should have done it. I just need to get this out in the open. I don't like the way you did it. And then after I started talking to her, I realized she hadn't really read the whole thing.

36:56And in fairness, it's 25 ,000 words. You can't expect everyone to read the whole thing. And as you guys know, people base their opinions on things through fragments and what they see on social media and clips. Ben has definitely read the whole thing. I read it. I paid my$79 to tell us. So anyway, it's been what you think it would be. It's been polarized. I think the people who mattered the most to me, for the most part, believed what I believed is that it was not a great choice either way, but that I had to tell some version of this story and, first of all, correct the record on my own behalf.

37:36but also like let the media know that there were these sort of journalistic crimes that were committed that were never uncovered because New York Magazine at the end of the day didn't want to get to the bottom of it. I hate to criticize them because, you know, they were victimized in this whole thing. But I sent them a long memo and said, these are the questions you need to ask in this investigation. So after I learned there was going to be an investigation, I privately sent a very detailed memo and said, you need to ask, has this ever happened before? Were any journalistic lines crossed? Were catch and kill operations done on behalf of Kennedy?

38:20Did she write strategy memos to him? Did she become a political operative for him? I laid it all out in a series of questions. and frankly, there was no evidence that they ever pursued any of that. I know I'm blasting a lot of media organizations today. That is true. I have to reach out to a bunch of people for comment after this, right? I'm like keeping a little mental log. Not to now turn my wrath on you guys, but you guys wrote a really stupid piece defending her. That was me. Don't blame Max. That is something that we actually, we were discussing beforehand. The piece was September 23rd, actually.

38:55You didn't know, though. You didn't know. Looking at the New York Post coverage of that piece. I'm curious your reaction to it beyond just being stupid which I think my piece was like look like journalists are human beings they make mistakes they have complicated personal lives like that's fair and sort of out of control magazine writers have always been a feature of the American landscape all right there are worse things than sex etc etc yeah but tell me I'm curious like you thought that was idiotic at the time obviously I did but like in fairness to you Ben only because I knew like the real story wasn't about sex it was about her running around, you know, like I'm trying hard to like put this part of the story in the past because I do, I genuinely think she suffered enough and I've had my say, but like she was running around collecting opposition research from Liz Smith at the DNC and from, you know, Hunter Biden and Hunter Biden's lawyer who were the, you know, who were the source for the bear story and for these kind of old friends of Bobby and women who she learned about through Jessica Reed Krauss.

40:00She was collecting all this stuff, affirmatively going out and getting it. It's not just that it was coming to her and giving it to him, both because she wanted to, and also he was manipulated her in these very complicated ways. And so she was constantly trying to get back in with him when he would cut her off. It was a very, you know, sad dynamic they had. Another reason that he, that there should be more of a focus on, on, on him. And we just can't do that as journalists. Like, you can't cross those lines. You can't, you know, there's a young campaign aide who came to her with a detailed account of the wild and crazy selection process of Bobby's VP candidate.

40:42and she sent it to Bobby. She outed him. All right? Yeah, that's a lot worse. So I knew all this stuff and I knew that this was not like, oh, she had a little, she exchanged some flirtatious texts with someone she wrote a profile of. If that were all that happened, I would probably agree with your assessment back in September. But I knew it was so much worse than that. So Ryan, I wanted to wrap this up, but I actually do, I realize I have a follow-up question that I kind of want to ask you here because you knew about the Mark Sanford situation, which you wrote about in your first entry, in which you say that Olivia slept with Mark Sanford, which is somebody else that she profiled.

41:20It seems like you're implying there that this is a part of a pattern of behavior. How did that factor into how you saw the RFK situation? Well, there was a personal component to it in that, like, you know, I just thought, like, I'm the stupidest person in the world, obviously. Like, I cannot believe this happened twice. I mean, imagine my surprise that almost four years to the day later, the same fucking thing happens. It's a second presidential campaign. We've got another book contract because the Avid Reader guys were so just patient with us. And she did the same exact thing. So on the one hand, it's like, well, you know, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me.

42:05There was a certain amount of that. And I think I've been appropriately criticized by a lot of people for giving her a second chance, for trying to repair our relationship, for trying to, like, dig ourselves out of that insane drama. But I genuinely, you know, thought that there were some sort of weird circumstances that led to that thing with Samford. and we did a lot of, you know, work to kind of move past it. I was wrong. I was obviously very wrong. And, you know, by that point, I woke up and just realized I didn't really know this person. This person lived a double life for a year. So when I would tell this story to people, I would always say, like, it was like waking up and learning that your partner is a heroin addict or has joined a cult.

42:52Like the degree to which I realized I had been completely conned and fooled and this person was living a second life was, you know, just off the charts. And literally from that point on, August 17th, 2024, when I confronted her, I viewed the story in a much more detached way, almost anthropologically. And as a reporter, because I was just so, once I got over the shock, I was just so like fascinated by it because it is genuinely a crazy story. And this goes back to what you asked before, Ben. And I think that's what allowed me to write it in the kind of, in a sort of, I don't know, in a literary nonfiction way, because it's a crazy story, right?

43:39It is a genuinely crazy story. And why not, you know, treat it with a certain sense of humor? Because there are some genuinely funny parts to the whole thing. And in a, you know, hopefully self-deprecating way. and so, you know, that's how I looked at it. Just to sort of pull it back, you know, you spent your career writing about all this stuff and did find yourself kind of, you know, a character in the Daily Mail getting stalked by paparazzi and in this funny orthogonal relationship to the media's attempts to adjust to Donald Trump and to Donald Trump's return, his pressure on the media. And I guess to kind of end this conversation at a higher altitude, you know, what do you feel like you've learned about the American media through this.

44:24Oh, we need another hour, guys. Look, I... That's what I was afraid of. I mean, one obvious lesson, Olivia wrote a book and I wrote a series on Substack. And what mattered in those two mediums was which account was true and which account seemed more real. and I think that was an interesting experience to be sort of in the middle of that to see Simon & Schuster this huge conglomerate make this big bet on this book and spend all that money cutting down trees and distributing it and hiring Risa Heller to do PR and convincing the New York Times to do this puffy piece and convincing the new editor of Vanity Fair that this was going to be like you know, his big splashy debut and then just sort of coming along with not, you know, I don't want to be too pat myself on the back, but just coming along with like the truth and was able to sort of cut through all of that bullshit.

45:35Right. And there was a sort of like asymmetric warfare going on, frankly, between, you know, this rinky dink substack and this, you know, this massive consortium of media companies pushing Olivia's account in front of everyone. and the truth, in my view, won out. That's an important media lesson with our fragmented landscape and declining trust in media. You can still find an audience if you tell the truth. Well, Ryan, that feels like a really good place for us to leave it. Thank you so much for joining us. This is a really interesting conversation. I think we might have to do some reaching out for a comment now.

46:18I don't know. Ben and I will discuss. We'll figure it out. But Ryan, thanks for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Thanks, guys. This was a good conversation. First time I've done anything like this. So I'm glad. I know. Thank you. Yes, that's a mandatory part of our booking. Some people who are going to be mad, but I'm glad I did with you guys. Thanks. Thanks for letting me say this.

46:43Hey, everyone. I'm Manny, a producer here at Semaphore with a quick note about today's episode. Max and Ben reached out to everyone Ryan Lizzo referred to in this interview. and received the following responses. First, Olivia Nuzzi declined to respond to Lizza and hasn't publicly engaged with his allegations. When she withdrew her request for a protective order last November, her lawyer said, quote, Ms. Nuzzi has no interest in fighting a public relations battle. Secondly, in response to Lizza's comments about Jacob Bernstein's story in the New York Times, a spokesperson for the paper told us, quote, quote, the Times publishes information that we are able to confirm through reporting.

47:24We require multiple sources to verify facts, and we don't publish innuendo. Our article on Ms. Nuzzi included the details we could confirm, and it's untrue to imply otherwise. Thirdly, in a statement, Politico editor-in-chief John Harris said, quote, Ryan Lizza never shared with me details of the complicated interactions and drama involving himself, Olivia Nuzzi, Robert Kennedy Jr., and other political figures that he ultimately described in his Substack column. No one at Politico turned down a piece from him on this subject because one was never presented to us. There is not, quote, a lot of friction between Ryan and me.

48:08I wished him well when he left and still do. And finally, New York Magazine declined to comment. We'll be back with the Mixed Signals debrief right after this break. Thank you.

48:48AI opportunity. Operationalize it. Visit thinkwithgoogle.com.

48:58Ben, there's a million ways that we could take this a million directions. This is a pretty crazy and wide ranging interview, I feel like with Ryan, but I want to kind of get at the claim that I suspect maybe you're the most dubious of. Did you buy his argument that this is really not a story that's a sex scandal and that really it's a scandal about RFK Jr. and, you know, the kind of things that he was trying to do to achieve and maintain power and that ultimately kind of people are getting distracted by the other stuff? I don't know. What did you think about Ryan casting it that way, I guess, is how I should frame it?

49:38I mean, honestly, I found myself a little more persuaded than I expected to be. Like, I genuinely did, having read his stuff, come in thinking a little, like, a little unpersuaded that this was a real moral imperative to do this. And I do think still, you know, it's not history's greatest set of crimes. But I agree if, like, as he alleged, you know, she was kind of narking on sources, essentially, to a politician. Like, that's disturbing. And Kennedy is just an unbelievably interesting figure who, I think it's not inconceivable is going to run for president in three years. And so I do think, you know, fundamentally, if you're going to make the case that this is an important and interesting story, it's going to be because it's a story about him.

50:19I do wonder what happens if Olivia doesn't file, you know, that police report. I think we're having a very different conversation now. I think that clearly was the thing that sent Ryan kind of over the edge and, you know, set him on the path to kind of to do this. I wonder if he would be writing the same kind of, you know, capital J journalism crimes story without that. Obviously, that element is intertwined with the story in general. But I do think it's hard for me to see kind of where the personal feelings and the kind of professional journalism concerns kind of begin. He said at one point in the recording, you know, that this was just also kind of just a crazy story, one of the crazy stories, and it kind of just happened to be happening to me, which I can see myself having a similar type of reaction, I feel like, if I had found myself in this position.

51:08I don't know. What do you think about that assessment, Ben? Yeah, I mean, I think the reality so often of journalism and of politics is like, you can't really cleanly disentangle these things. There's no way to. These are human beings. There's not some sort of like, here are journalism ethics, and here are how human beings behave, and we're going to totally separate them. I have some sympathy for. I mean, I realize he thought that John Harris was sort of preemptively caving to the Trump administration by not running this story. But I also do think, like, you could imagine from an editor's point of view, like, this is just inseparably mixed up with this, you know, complex personal relationship that has blown up in the most nuclear possible fashion.

51:44And maybe I'll keep my news brand apart from that. Ben, would you have run the story if he came to you and said, hey, I've got this? It would have depended what publication I was editing and what and kind of, in some sense what that place's brand and identity and mission were, right? I think at BuzzFeed, we definitely would have published it. BuzzFeed runs a story, maybe a longer conversation. Maybe you're going to have to put this one on your sub stack at Semaphore. Yeah. What did you think? I mean, in a way, I thought the place that he concluded was really interesting, which is like he saw himself as the sort of David up against the Goliath of this publicity machine around the Newtsey book, Vanity Fair, Simon & Schuster, these, you know, giant 20th century institutions and that he basically, with his little speedboat, like torpedoed them and destroyed her book bubble, you know, her sort of her book launch and won.

52:28And that it's in some sense a story of new media beating old media. You know, actually, I feel like he took it actually in a slightly different direction than that. I thought that's where he was going to. But he was making a broader point, you know, about the capital T truth and like the truth won out. I'm sure that there's more to the story that, you know, that we don't know, despite the fact that, you know, obviously, I think that, you know, much of what he was saying was that we haven't heard any sort of meaningful pushback on. I do think that he did show that if you have a set of facts that are not known by other people and you are smart about the ways in which you kind of put them out, kind of dribbling them out, writing it in a serialized manner that, yeah, you can beat the kind of big, slow-moving, older legacy institutions.

53:16Though, obviously, I also think that it's slightly more complicated than it was presented there. I don't know, Ben, what did you think about that? Yeah, you know, it's funny. I mean, I guess another thing that I think about and worry about is, you know, the kind of journalism we do and that the world is moving toward is so rooted in individuals and putting your confidence in an individual journalist and understanding where they're coming from. But of course, like, you know, we're all flawed. And And what happens when that individual's life really deeply gets in the way of their journalism one way or the other?

53:44And this is going to be true for Ryan as well as for Olivia, right? Like how do you as the publisher who has sort of tried to stake out this new modern relationship between the brand and the individual voice and creators and talent? Like, you know, sure gets messy. Didn't have to worry about that back in the days when everybody was a faceless cog. That's true. No, the cogs are more visible than ever. And this was – No, this used to be able just to go out and do depraved things and nobody cared. That's true. Stakes are higher. Woo.

54:17That is it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of Mixed Signals from us here at Semaphore. Our show is produced by Manny Fidel and Josh Billinson with special thanks to Anna Pizzino, Jules Zern, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Tori Kaur, Garrett Wiley, and Daniel Haift. Our engineer is Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Steve Bone. Our public editor is all of the editors listed in this episode who Ryan had various problems with. John Harris, editor-in-chief of Politico. Who am I forgetting? David Haskell, of course, of New York Magazine. Oh, and Marc Aduchy of Vanity Fair.

54:54Guys, please let us know what you think. If you like Mixed Signals, follow us wherever you get your podcasts, and please subscribe on YouTube. And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.