Washington’s media bubble is imploding after explosive revelations that reporter Olivia Nuzzi carried on an emotional affair with RFK Jr. while covering him during the presidential race. The scandal has spiraled into leaked love letters, a derailed engagement, allegations of multiple political affairs, and a sudden firing that exposes the collapse of journalistic ethics in D.C. As new details surface involving Mark Sanford and Keith Olbermann, the story reveals a deeper truth about how power, access, and media influence really work behind the scenes.
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
STU: Okay. Olivia Nuzzi. Do you know who she is?
GLENN: She's a reporter, right?
STU: Okay. Yes. Reporter. Very famous, inside DC, New York circles famous reporter.
GLENN: Lover, intellectual lover of RFK, if I'm not mistaken. Intellectual lover.
STU: Okay. Exactly. Yeah. So you remember the story.
GLENN: Not a lover lover.
STU: The story you don't know -- if you don't remember this, Glenn is referring to, is she was engaged to another reporter, Ryan Lizza, and it was revealed during this most recent presidential campaign that she was having an emotional affair of sorts with RFK Jr. Who as we -- you know, certainly has meant much to him during his life, but he is also married.
So he is -- so, I mean, he's a Kennedy. What do you expect here?
GLENN: He's a Kennedy. Yeah. Yes.
STU: He apparently, they were going back and forth, they had some sort of emotional affair going on.
And this is after she had written a profile about him.
So obviously, journalistically, there are ethical problems. As if they cared about ethical problems in journalism anymore.
This one rose to the level where she was fired. She's canned from her job.
She had this stratospheric rise in the media. She was -- remembering the time line right. She was hired. She wrote -- she was working for a campaign at one point.
She then wrote kind of an exposé of that campaign, that she worked for. And it got published in the New York Daily News.
Based off of just that, she was elevated to the main, like, political reporter at the Daily Beast, which shows you their particular standards.
She was 22, at the time, Glenn. Like, super young. This does not happen.
She wrote for a while there. People kind of like her writing. She also has the sort of throwback style. Very pretty. Kind of -- she has that mystique about her. And it was to the extent that they brought her to, I think, it was New York magazine. She wound up getting the lead political reporter job at that -- or, lead political columnist. A job they created for her. A position that did not exist previously.
And she's like 24 years old.
How has this happened?
GLENN: I think RFK has probably came up with other positions for 24-year-olds that didn't exist as well.
STU: Certainly, factually, accurate. Whether you want to say it or not, is another story, I suppose.
So, anyway, she goes through, and she breaks a lot of big stories. She's always getting odd amount of access to politicians, that you don't understand. You know, all across the spectrum.
She breaks big stories. She always has these big details about it. She writes very colorfully about all these interactions with these politicians. Anyway, this whole scandal blows up with RFK Jr.
Her -- her engagement breaks off. She kind of goes into hiding. For a year.
In that year, she's apparently writing a book. And the book comes out today.
Now, all of this could be just already an amazing salacious story. However, on the day before her book release, her ex-fiancé, also a reporter, releases a story about how he found out about all of -- all of the nonsense. Okay?
GLENN: Oh, good.
STU: And he writes that she comes back from a trip. And he uncovers some napkins from a hotel with a bunch of writing on it. Which turn out to be a love letter to the politician.
Which, again, in her book.
GLENN: Written by her.
STU: Written by her. In her book, she never says RFK Jr's name. She describes his relationship in detail. Never says the name. Just calls him "the politician."
Because I assume, because he might sue or whatever. Who knows?
You know, she doesn't want to be -- she doesn't -- she doesn't want to call him out by name. Every detail is quite clear in the book. It's quite clear it's about him.
GLENN: Yeah. She might find him in the bottom of a river.
(laughter)
GLENN: I'm just -- I'm just saying. I don't know what else could happen.
STU: The thing I love about this particular segment is that I would love to give you this story at any time.
The fact that you're deep on back medication right now is the perfect time for you to --
GLENN: I'm not on medication. I'm actually not on medication.
I'm just in so much pain, I just don't care.
STU: Whatever is making you delirious, I love it.
GLENN: Right. Got it.
STU: So the Ryna Lizza piece comes out. It's called How I Found Out. He goes through the whole details. He finds the napkins, finds the love letter, written on the napkins.
Okay. And in the love letter, it says, if I swallowed every drop of water from the tower above your house, I would still thirst for you.
Now -- I just love it.
Now, they live in DC, Glenn.
As you may know, not a lot of water towers in their home in DC. She realized, this is not a love letter to me, but someone else.
Finally, she starts going in and realizing, this is about a famous politician.
We go through the same -- goes through the whole story and finds out, there's a lot of detail about everything.
This is going to blow up their life. He realizes, it's going to be a problem. He calls his publicist, of course. This is what you do when you're one of these DC insider reporters, you call your publicist. And he says, we have a big problem.
Olivia is sleeping with Mark Sanford, a totally different politician.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh.
STU: This is a totally different affair.
GLENN: Mark Sanford. Wasn't he -- he was in Virginia, wasn't he?
STU: No, South Carolina.
GLENN: South Carolina, that's right. That's right. Who went for a walk one day, and just never showed up.
STU: Yes! And remember, he was like, oh, he's out on the Appalachian Trail, and then they found out he was actually.
GLENN: That's right.
STU: He was actually hooking up --
GLENN: Yeah. Under a water tower.
STU: Right. With a person he called his soul mate. Which I guess that was true for a time. They got together after that old relationship got broken up. Then they got back together.
And he got together with the soul mate. Then that broke up. And then he's rerunning for president if you remember, Glenn, in 2020, against Donald Trump. And making the pitch that, you know, I'm -- I've turned my life around. At that time, apparently, allegedly, sleeping with this reporter who profiled him, same exact thing that happened with RFK Jr. Except that, you know, we don't know. At least, there's no allegations that they actually wound up consummating the RFK Jr relationship.
In the story, however, in addition to all of this, we also get additional details of a relationship that Olivia Nuzzi had when she was 21 years old with Keith Olbermann.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. Oh, my gosh.
STU: I mean, the story is almost too good to tell.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh. So she's like -- what was the spy's name, you know, that was sleeping with everybody -- like Whory Harriet or something like that. I mean, is that how she gets the stories? She just sleeps with these people?
STU: I don't know. Seemingly, this does occur on a pretty regular basis in this situation.
GLENN: Wow.
STU: And, you know, we ran out of time. Tomorrow, we should do the Olbermann's part of the saga, which is absolutely fascinating.
GLENN: Oh, we must.
STU: They seem to be accusing him of something in this piece. Which is above and beyond just hooking up. So that's something we should talk about tomorrow as well.
GLENN: Oh, I will -- I'll just write it down now. I'm scheduling -- scheduling the Keith Olbermann segment for tomorrow.





