Olivia Nuzzi’s Ex, Ryan Lizza, Is Out at Politico After Leave of Absence Over Nuzzi-RFK ‘Relationship’: Lizza Blasts Ex-Employer

Journalist Ryan Lizza appears to be going through another nasty breakup – this time with his former employer Politico.On Monday, the ex-fiancée of former New York Magazine writer Olivia Nuzzi and co-author of Politico’s influential Playbook, whose engagement and career imploded due to Nuzzi’s “inappropriate relationship” with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., launched a new Substack newsletter and wasted no time in blasting his former employer. “Some news: I recently left Politico, where I’ve served as the Chief Washington Correspondent since 2019,” he writes in the first post on Telos.news. “The main reason? Their style of political coverage is not meeting the unprecedented moment of democratic peril we are facing.”Mr. Lizza doubled down on his comments in a subsequent post, writing that he received a call and letter from Politico’s legal team. He claims they alerted him of a “violation” before sending him a cease-and desist letter claiming that he had not followed a non-disparagement clause in his contract with them.“The lawyer alleged that I had disparaged the billion-dollar company and demanded that I delete, in its entirety, an 1800-word article I wrote yesterday announcing the launch of this publication, Telos,” he wrote in a post entitled “Politico and Free Speech.” Ryan Lizza’ s Substack is a top new download, according to the platform. Substack“I stand by that statement and it would be an extraordinary act of censorship for a news organization to attempt to ban a former employee from commenting on it in perpetuity, especially given how central Politico’s coverage is to any reporting on the relationship between the press and the Trump administration, which I intend to cover aggressively.”Both posts still remain linked on Mr. Lizza’s substack landing page.Politico did not immediately return a request for comment.In his original piece, Mr. Lizza hammered Politico with accusations that they caved to pressure from the Trump Administration after news surfaced that the Trump Administration canceled millions of dollars of government subscriptions to the site’s lucrative “Pro” service amid frustration with the Politico newsroom’s liberal bias.“I saw up close how easy it was for a media conglomerate to grovel before the Trump administration when the wrong people are in charge,” he writes. “After Trump attacked Politico for selling subscriptions to the federal government, Politico made a regrettable mistake. To smooth things over, they sent our White House reporter to be an onstage guest at CPAC, a sewer of media bashing and cheerleading for the degradation of our democracy.”New York Magazine Washington Correspondent Olivia Nuzzi attends Vox Media’s 2022 Code Conference, September 7, 2022 at Beverly Hills, California. Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for Vox MediaMr. Lizza claims to have left Politico on his own volition but reports suggest otherwise. “That is not the main reason,” Dylan Byers, media columnist for Puck News wrote in a post on X that referenced Mr. Lizza’s declaration that he chose to leave.Last fall, Mr. Lizza had become embroiled in scandal after Ms. Nuzzi was placed on leave in September, then fired the following month, after New York magazine discovered she had engaged in an “inappropriate relationship” with Mr. Kennedy while she was covering his 2024 campaign for president. The emotional affair, to which Ms. Nuzzi confessed, played a central role in her very public and unpleasant breakup with her fiancé, which played out in court with ugly accusations from both sides and was followed closely in Washington media and political circles.Ms. Nuzzi and Mr. Lizza were a prominent Washington couple, frequently photographed at events around town. When their relationship shattered last year, Ms. Nuzzi alleged in a legal filing that Mr. Lizza, blackmailed her in an attempt to coerce her back into their relationship when she had broken it off with him, and that when she refused, he moved against her by exposing her dalliance with Mr. Kennedy.Olivia Nuzzi accued her ex-fiance Ryan Lizza of threatening her over her sexting relationship with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images for CBS News / Getty Images“[Lizza] explicitly threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation—a threat he has since carried out,” she wrote in her filing from October.The political journalist told the court that Mr. Lizza began harassing her at the start of last July and that by the next month, he had stolen a personal electronic device and hacked into several others to steal information about her relationship with Mr. Kennedy that Mr. Lizza shopped around to various media outlets.She also accused Mr. Lizza of threatening her with violence if she didn’t “assume his share of financial responsibility” for a contract to jointly author a book. The publication status of the book was not immediately known, nor is the nature of this “financial responsibility.”When the Nuzzi scandal was white hot last year, Mr. Lizza took a leave of absence from Politico. He returned from leave on January, declaring on X that he was returning to long form reporting for Politico’ s magazine, but Politico never published him.In 2017, Mr. Lizza, now a divorced father of two, was fired from his prestigious job at the New Yorker magazine, at the height of the #MeToo movement, for “improper sexual conduct,” which Mr. Lizza strongly denied. He was also suspended from his paid, on-camera contributor role at CNN, but CNN quickly reinstated him after clearing him in an internal investigation of the same allegations for which the New Yorker fired him. He then landed at Politico, a rare example of a prominent journalist accused of sexual misconduct who managed to salvage his career.But now Mr. Lizza, tarred by Ms. Nuzzi’s allegations of stalking and emotional abuse, has joined the long list of ousted media figures seeking a second act on Substack.

Olivia Nuzzi’s Ex, Ryan Lizza, Is Out at Politico After Leave of Absence Over Nuzzi-RFK ‘Relationship’: Lizza Blasts Ex-Employer

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