Former Politico reporter Ryan Lizza is in the spotlight right now because he has been publishing a series of Substack posts about his ex-fiancée, journalist Olivia Nuzzi, whose affair with health secretary RFK Jr. has heated Washington gossip. The latest twist in his series of claims is President Donald Trump’s alleged statement regarding the 2024 assassination attempt. According to Lizza, his explosive statement “would shatter our understanding of recent history.”
Lizza says that while Nuzi was covering Trump, she arranged for a New York magazine commissioned sketch artist, Isabelle Brourman, to observe the president at Mar-a-Lago and work on a portrait. In the summer of 2024, Brourman allegedly overheard Trump discussing a straddling version of the incidents surrounding the July shooting in Butler, Pennsylvania. Lizza states that the conversation, which reportedly took place as Trump organized meetings with allies like former Rep. Matt Gaetz and future White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, was recorded.
The material of what Trump said has not been made public, but Lizza insists that it exists. He wrote, “Trump had taken a liking to Izzy when she worked as a sketch artist during his Manhattan trial, and Olivia figured he would enjoy having her around him. She was right.” He mentioned that Brourman made her way into Trump’s inner circle very comfortably. This claim is one of the many that Lizza has been publishing as he portrays his ex as someone to be “ethically compromised.”
“Trump might have said about Butler, PA—something explosive that, if she were correct, would shatter our understanding of recent history.” Our understanding? No. Only the most naive amongst us believes that was a real assassination attempt. It was embarrassingly bad RealityTV. https://t.co/SjxdA8MJGO
— dominique6138 (@dominique6138) November 28, 2025
The New York Times once described the couple as well-connected and “modestly glamorous.” They called off their engagement last year after rumors of Nuzzi’s involvement with RFK Jr. started to circulate. Nuzzi has profiled Kennedy during his 2023 presidential bid for New York Magazine, and by the following year, the magazine cut ties with her after learning of the affair.
Nuzzi is recently in the public light for her memoir-like book American Canto’s promotion and sharing her side of the story. In a Vanity Fair excerpt, Nuzzi doesn’t mention RFK Jr. directly rather refers to him as ‘the politician.’ The line that drew massive attention was, “I would not like to think about the worm in his brain that other people found so funny,” she wrote, referencing the dead worm previously found in Kennedy’s brain. “I loved his brain.”
People online grew curious about the affair. Meanwhile, Lizzy decided to lay out his side in a lengthy Substack post. He claimed not only did Nuzzi cross a romantic line, but overstepped professional boundaries too. “Olivia had essentially become a private political operative for Bobby Kennedy, while publicly posing as a hard-nosed reporter. In other words, what you have been reading about her is not really a scandal about s–, but a scandal about journalistic ethics,” he wrote. He even accused his ex of mishandling a story from Kennedy’s past.
An excerpt from Olivia Nuzzi’s book, “American Canto.”
Warning: this is about RFK, Jr., his brain worm and her undying, passionate feelings for him.
Pass me the bottle of Zofran.
What in the “how did you graduate from high school” hell is this? pic.twitter.com/chzFCVRadT
— Sharon (Mueller) Miracle (@sharonLmiracle) November 17, 2025
“Olivia had heard the strange story from a confidential source. But instead of writing it herself and owning what would become one of the most infamous stories of 2024, or handing it off to a colleague at New York, Olivia outed the source to Bobby and told him everything she had learned. Together they plotted ways to kill it, or, at the very least, get ahead of it.”
Nuzzi’s attorney, Ari Wilkenfeld, pushed back against the accusations. He said the affair was the only time Nuzzi had ever crossed a journalistic line.
