Ryan Lizza Posts Part 4 of His Substack Series Bashing Ex-Fiancée Olivia Nuzzi With Frustrating Update on the Mar-A-Lago Tape

X/@Olivianuzzi

Is this the modern digital version of Geraldo Rivera in Al Capone’s vault?

Ryan Lizza sparked major buzz with the third scathing installment of his series eviscerating Olivia Nuzzi last week, accusing his former fiancée of helping “catch and kill” damaging stories about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — and ending with an alleged secret recording Nuzzi helped make of President Donald Trump at Mar-A-Lago.

On Monday, he finally revealed the status of that much-anticipated recording, giving the frustrating answer that it has apparently been erased.

Nuzzi’s relationship with Kennedy — reportedly only over the phone and never physically consummated — led to her departure from New York magazine. She was widely criticized for failing to disclose the relationship to her editors despite the conflict of interest related to her writing a profile on Kennedy and continuing to cover the other candidates in the race. More recent revelations have reportedly led to her current employer, Vanity Fair, reviewing her conduct, with a spokesperson for the magazine telling The New York Times, “We were taken by surprise, and we are looking at all the facts.” Vanity Fair is expected to let Nuzzi’s contract “lapse,” according to Semafor.

Building on his previous posts in which Lizza spilled the tea about Nuzzi’s past relationship with Keith Olbermann, revealed embarrassing details of Nuzzi’s correspondence with Kennedy, and accused her of having an affair with yet another former GOP presidential candidate, Mark Sanford, his third missive dug into accusations that Nuzzi acted more like an aggressive public relations flak than a journalist in her efforts to shield Kennedy from negative press.

Her attempts to aid Kennedy allegedly included engineering an effort to secretly record Trump:

Olivia had a brilliant plan to help secure Trump’s cooperation with her article. She convinced New York magazine to commission artist Isabelle Brourman to draw a portrait of Trump to accompany the piece. 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. But Olivia was excluded from Izzy’s key session with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and so Olivia adjusted the plan. She sent Izzy inside Trump’s Palm Beach compound with a recorder in her bag, which rolled as Izzy drew Trump, who was taking campaign meetings with the likes of Matt Gaetz, Susie Wiles, and others. With any luck, Olivia would capture some great material for her piece and some intel for Bobby as he negotiated the endorsement.

According to Olivia, when Izzy left the session, Izzy was hung up on something she believed Trump might have said about Butler, Pennsylvania—something explosive that, if she were correct, would shatter our understanding of recent history.

Because Florida is a two-party consent state, a secret recording could have been a crime, and Lizza’s insinuations of what Trump “might have said” put political commentators and conspiracy theorists in a tizzy, convinced this would reveal the president had faked his injuries or otherwise misrepresented events.

On Monday, the tin foil hats were sadly folded up for the recycling bin. Here’s what Lizza’s Part 4 update said about the tape and “what Izzy told Olivia she believed she had overheard Trump say about his attempted assassination when Izzy was secretly recording Trump and his campaign aides at Mar-a-Lago on August 13, 2024”:

According to Olivia, Izzy thought Trump said something that cast doubt on the official story behind Trump’s bloody ear, which was injured on July 13 in Butler, Pennsylvania, when Thomas Crooks tried to kill Trump.

I assumed the context of what Izzy thought she overheard was about whether it was one of the eight rounds fired by Crooks that nicked Trump’s ear or something else—ricocheting glass or a bullet fragment—but that’s just speculation.

What I know from Olivia is that the quality of the audio recording was poor, that she couldn’t corroborate Izzy’s recollection, that she discussed the recording with Bobby, and that after a phone call with Bobby while he was on vacation with his wife in Baja, Olivia erased the recording.

Obviously, this episode raises a lot of questions:

• When did Bobby learn about the operation to record Trump, and was it before or after it happened?
• Did Bobby ever disclose what he knew to the Trump campaign or anyone else?
• Did Olivia pass on any intel to Bobby from the recording, which would have included hours of Trump’s private campaign meetings at Mar-a-Lago, that aided him in his endorsement negotiations with Trump?
• What information from the recording, if any, did Olivia use in her profile of Trump, which was published on September 9, 2024?
• What did Trump really say about Butler, if anything?
• Does anyone still have a copy of the recording?

The answers to these questions, and any additional information about what really happened, will have to come from Olivia, Izzy, and Bobby.

So, basically, we have shaky, uncertain fourth-hand hearsay — what Izzy says she thinks she heard and told Nuzzi who told Lizza — and there was a “poor” quality audio recording but even that’s been erased and it’s unknown if any other copies exist.

The remainder of Lizza’s post includes additional revelations he says Nuzzi confessed to him after admitting her affair with Kennedy, including Nuzzi allegedly claiming Kennedy had a “pregnancy fetish,” Kennedy had confessed to her he was using ketamine, Nuzzi fearing Kennedy would “kill” her if she betrayed him but still not deleting her communications with him as she promised, and other details about Kennedy’s “alleged psychological manipulation” of her.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.