Reporter Olivia Nuzzi’s career is one of the strangest success stories in modern journalism. From volunteering on Anthony Weiner’s collapsing mayoral campaign to becoming a 24-year-old Washington correspondent with jobs created specifically for her... Nuzzi's rise through the media ranks defies every norm of the industry. Glenn Beck and Stu Burguiere explore how an unknown college student was elevated into a media celebrity overnight, why institutions continued to protect her even after major ethical scandals, and what her story reveals about how power truly works inside the press. Is this talent, luck, or something far more engineered?
Transcript
Below is a rush transcript that may contain errors
STU: Yes. And I will begin the story at the very, very start, Glenn. And I will start it with a question for you.
And this is a question that I think sets the scene for the entire journey we're about to go on.
GLENN: Okay.
STU: Journalist.
GLENN: Let me get my boots on.
STU: Let's do it. She starts her career, very first job, she volunteers as an intern for what campaign? Volunteers as an intern for what campaign?
GLENN: Just -- it just has to be Bill Clinton. Has to be.
STU: It's a good guess. However, timing wise --
GLENN: Oh, Anthony Wiener.
STU: Anthony Wiener is the answer.
GLENN: Yes. Yes! Yes!
STU: She volunteers for the failed mayoral campaign.
GLENN: Fascinating. Fascinating.
STU: Of Anthony Wiener. So this is how this story starts.
GLENN: Oh, Anthony Wiener. So she starts covering Wieners.
STU: Yes. She starts covering Wieners. And the whole story is her doing more of that. We'll get into that as we go.
GLENN: All right.
STU: She starts with the Wiener campaign. It's a disaster. It's kind of a legendary catastrophe. They have a documentary about to go. We talked about that at the time. You know, totally the whole thing flames apart.
GLENN: By the way. By the way. I'm just sitting here thinking, I don't think I was technically wrong when I said it was a Clinton campaign.
Because remember, Hillary Clinton is all over the Wiener.
STU: But that's -- please, don't say it like that.
But, yes. That is accurate.
GLENN: Yeah. Because if I say it like that. It leads you to believe. And that is absolutely not true.
I don't think she's ever --
(laughter)
STU: I think, yes. Because if you remember Huma Abedin, at this time is married to Anthony Wiener.
GLENN: Can you use air quotes? Air quotes on that?
STU: Yes. On her wonderful path to marry a Soros. She's at that time, married to Wiener. And she is helping out Hillary Clinton as her top dog main assistant.
GLENN: Yeah.
STU: That's ongoing. That's the first thing. Almost has nothing to do with the story.
GLENN: Did you use air quotes for the word assistant there, as well.
STU: I did not. So how does Olivia Nuzzi get into our lives? She goes to -- she goes from the Wiener campaign and leaves, and writes basically a tell-all, you know, scandal log of what was going on during the Wiener campaign. Basically, this thing was a catastrophe. She tells the inside story. And releases it to the Daily News. Who prints this column, from at this point a 20-year-old aspiring journalist. And, you know, she's pretty. She's glamorous. She's kind of like the New York elite journalist that you would exactly picture in this situation.
So she gets this, and turns that one column into a job, while she's still in college. She's at Fordham. She's still at college.
GLENN: Oh, she's in Fordham.
STU: Fordham, of course. I thought you would like that detail.
GLENN: Yeah, sorry.
STU: For multiple reasons.
GLENN: My daughter went to Fordham. They actually -- they actually had the balls to -- they held rallies against me on the Fordham campus, and then they had the balls to come and ask my wife and I to come in to meet with the dean, because they wanted to know if we would help them build a library.
STU: No.
GLENN: There were words that started with F that were not fruit!
STU: Yeah.
GLENN: As we left that meeting.
STU: Was it Fordham? Was the F-word Fordham? You Fordham!
GLENN: No. Fordham you!
STU: Yeah. That's the university.
GLENN: That's what I mean. Fordham University. Fordham you! Anyway, go ahead.
STU: Okay. So she gets hired from one that column, as one of the main presidential campaign correspondence for the Daily Beast, which tells you yet again, something about the standards of the Daily Beast when it comes to journalism, which are exactly zero. They have higher standards at Fordham.
(laughter)
GLENN: And those are pretty low.
STU: Those are low.
She is going to cover the Chris Christie campaign. The Rand Paul campaign. And some of the early bubbling beginnings of the Donald Trump campaign. This is back in 2014, '15, and there. She -- in 2015, as you note, as she's in this job. She does that tweet about House of Cards. And how women should not -- or Hollywood should not misportray the journalists that are females. Because they're always saying that they sleep with their sources. And that's a terrible thing -- point that out.
Which is an amazing thing for multiple reasons, Glenn. Because, well, I'll get into that here in a second.
GLENN: Yeah. Okay.
STU: So she see that. She then gets named by Politico one of the 16 breakout media stars of the presidential election. This is November 2016.
GLENN: Wow.
STU: She then in February 2017 parlays that into a job, as the Washington correspondent of New York magazine.
She's 24 years old. Twenty-four years old, Washington correspondent, at New York magazine. You're saying, wow. That's a prestigious position. Who held it before her?
No one. They literally create this job for her, which is incredible. Again, she's 24 years old.
GLENN: Again, it's probably not the only position created for her.
STU: She may have several that she's documented in -- in a book or two, that we could go over later. Okay. So -- and you wonder. And this is a time to pause.
GLENN: Jesus would not be doing this segment, I just want to let you know, right here and now.
STU: Right. That's true. That's true.
GLENN: Go ahead.
STU: You think about what a meteoric rise this is.
Glenn, you know this. This is not how media operates. You don't do what she's done here.
Like, incredible. It's like, she -- someone who never played basketball before, and is in the NBA three years later. It's legitimately an incredible rise. You wonder how that rise occurred. Those questions may be answered later on.
GLENN: Stop using the word "rise." You're making me uncomfortable.
(laughter)
STU: 2018, she's included in the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
GLENN: Uh-huh.
STU: Which is a very prestigious list. October 2018, as a member of -- working for the New York magazine. She's invited for an exclusive interview in the Oval Office to interview Donald Trump. Again, she's 25 at this point.
Very prestigious. She's awarded a next award by the American Society of Magazine editors. She gets a documentary on MSNBC. She portrays herself on the show time show Billions. In 2022.
GLENN: Oh, my gosh.
STU: Again, this is someone who is a massive celebrity in that world. You may not know her name. But she is a massive celebrity.
GLENN: Okay.
STU: She gets a six-part interview from Bloomberg. And then she does a profile of RFK Jr, the candidate who you may remember running for president as a Democrat.
Okay. I can't remember if the profile happened when he was running as a Democrat, or he had kind of flipped to an independent. But it's before he's endorsing Trump, or there's MAHA or any of that stuff. Right? It's in that period.
GLENN: Sure. Sure. Sure.
STU: And she does this profile of him that I guess goes pretty well. And it comes out much more favorable, I would say than many of the other previews. Profiles of RFK Jr in this period.
But, again, has some criticism. And some quirkiness in it. And her style of writing has all sorts of weird details. You know, sometimes it's kind of -- I think it's actually pretty good. I think her reporting was regulated. She did have some really fascinating stories that she wrote over this period.
But like, the celebrities seemed to overextend past maybe what she had achieved in her career so far. So she writes this profile of RFK Jr.
And then it is -- the news breaks that RFK Jr and Olivia Nuzzi are having what they call an emotional affair, which seems to be lots of very detailed loving text messages back and forth. Promises about --
GLENN: When you say loving. Is it like, you know, you are a child of God. And I just love you and want to help you in any way. Is that what you mean by loving? Or do you know do you mean like Barry White loving?
STU: Well, to put it in another word, we're talking about a Kennedy. So I'm talking about Kennedy style loving.
GLENN: Okay. Ding-dong, pizza delivery.
STU: It's important to note that Olivia Nuzzi is engaged to another journalist, Ryan Lizza at this time. And so she's engaged to somebody. RFK Jr.
Not that this makes seemingly any difference to him whatsoever, is married at the time, and is still currently married to an actress in Hollywood. So he's doing this. She's doing this.
This is suboptimal not only for a marriage, but also a presidential campaign. This goes on, the news finally breaks this is happening. This is a problem for a bunch of reasons. Number one, you're -- you have a fiancé. Number two, the person you're texting with is married.
Number three, though, a really serious journalist problem, right?
Like, you're profiling someone and having an affair with them at the same time. That's frowned upon, at least in theory, in the world of journalism.
Now, in practice, God only knows. But in theory, you're not supposed to do that, Glenn. This is something they tell you relatively early on in journalism school, I assume.
And so he --
GLENN: I've got to apologize to all those people that I've been sleeping with that I've been on the show.
STU: How many people have you profiled, Glenn? You just profiled the Great Mufti. Have you ever had any relations --
GLENN: Yeah, have you ever had the relations with the Mufti? I've got to tell you the truth, Stu. Yep. Yep. Back in 1942.
STU: Oh, no.
So all of this comes out in the -- in the media. And she sort of goes -- she gets fired from the New York magazine because of this journalistic lapse. And she sort of goes into hiding.
Okay? She goes into hiding. She moves. She is -- not saying word one about this. And, you know, she talks a lot.
So that's notable.
In this period, Ryan Lizza, her ex-fiancé now, they broke up. Ex-fiancé and her are -- are negotiating according to him, a do not -- what is it?
A non-disclosure. Don't talk about this. Don't talk about this. Don't disparage. Let's just let this be over.
He also gets a message, according to him, from an intermediate friend that says, "Hey. She never wants to talk about this again. She hopes you'll never talk about this again. Can we just move past this?" And he according to him says, "You know what, I'm on board with that. Let's just never let this go."
So a little bit of time goes on. What we learn is, her time in exile has actually been spent writing a book, which is called American Canto. It's coming out in a couple of weeks from today, or from yesterday.
Two weeks from yesterday.
And it's a book --
GLENN: Is this one -- does the book include her time with governor Mark Sanford?
STU: Well, we're getting to that.
GLENN: 2019, 2020.
I mean, was she sleeping with him, too, before the JFK thing.
STU: That's a big part of the story we're getting to. At this point in the story, we have no idea about that. We only know about the RFK Jr. thing. So she releases this book, and in it, is all these details about the RFK Jr thing.
Now, you would think the way the media would handle this woman who they've just ejected from their society for massive journalistic and immoral lapses would be hammering her over her activity here.
GLENN: No.
STU: Instead, she gets a glowing profile in the New York Times with, like, her -- with an incredible -- you have to seat footage, Glenn. You would love it. It's her, she's driving in a convertible. Hair in the wind. Like, Chanel glasses. She looks spectacular, as she's going down. This is how the New York Times rolls this out for her.
