The Bulwark Podcast

Episode: Olivia Nuzzi Breaks Her Silence
Date: December 3, 2025
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Olivia Nuzzi

Episode Overview

In this emotional and revealing episode, The Bulwark Podcast host Tim Miller interviews journalist Olivia Nuzzi about her new book, American Canto, her time on the periphery of American politics, and the personal and ethical fallout from her consequential relationship with a major political figure. The conversation dives into themes of public shaming, journalistic ethics, spirituality, the distortion of reality in the Trump era, and Nuzzi’s own path through public controversy. They also unpack the far-reaching consequences of power, proximity, and vulnerability in a time of institutional crisis.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Book Genesis and the Purpose of Writing

• Why Write?
  • Olivia reveals that writing is her way of establishing reality, both for herself and her readers, particularly after making a significant personal mistake in her journalistic career.
  • "For me... It's just a way of establishing sort of the contours of reality, you know, to get down everything that can be stated for certain and have a better idea that way of what cannot be stated for certain." (03:54, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Spiritual Reckoning
  • She describes the process of writing the book as a spiritual event, a way to process her sense of shame and failure, and a refusal to sweep her mistakes aside.
  • Emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and learning from mistakes—rather than pretending they didn't happen.

2. Navigating Public Shame, Ethics, and the Media

• Public Shaming and Lewinsky Scale
  • Olivia discusses Monica Lewinsky's kindness to her as an unconventional metric for public shaming.
  • "It's sort of the Lewinsky scale of kindness. It's like the Richter scale for public shaming." (02:09, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Ethical Failure
  • She candidly admits to violating core journalistic ethics and reflects on the accumulation of imperceptible misjudgments leading up to her error.
  • "Those ethics rules exist for a reason... I had violated that. It struck me that, like, it's not like you just wake up one day and you make a big mistake." (05:08, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Not Writing to Escape
  • Contrary to what some expected, the book is an honest accounting rather than an attempt to "write out" of trouble.
  • "In some way I think I wrote myself further into it. Right. Because I revealed things that people didn't even know I did wrong." (07:50, Olivia Nuzzi)

3. Personal Reflection, Vulnerability, and God

• Spirituality and God
  • Unexpectedly, the book explores Olivia's relationship with God and reflects extensively on spirituality and personal growth.
  • "If I, like, made it through this dishonor in an honorable way... then hopefully I'd be able to proceed better than I was living before." (12:38, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Difficulty of Self-Assessment
  • Olivia describes the profound discomfort of turning her previously puckish, irreverent lens upon herself.
  • "I had never really written anything personal before... I always thought that if I was really in a piece, it was a process failure. And I guess this has been the ultimate process failure." (11:15, Olivia Nuzzi)

4. Blurring of Reality, Proximity to Power, and the Trump Era

• Loss of Perspective
  • Both Olivia and Tim discuss how extended immersion in the sphere of Trump-world politics led to a blurring of objectivity and emotional distances.
  • "It was too familiar... so familiar that it's foreign. And it wasn't until I fled... that I felt I could get a hold of it." (15:16, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Distortion Field
  • They unpack the idea of a "distortion of reality” spreading from the chaotic center of Trump’s rise, drawing in journalists and public actors alike.

5. Relationship with RFK (the ‘Politician’), Boundaries, and the Fallout

• Blurring Roles and Emotional Involvement
  • Olivia details her complex and ultimately fraught relationship with RFK, now Secretary of Health and Human Services—a relationship that crossed professional and personal lines, leading to public and private fallout.
  • She admits to loving him, being used, and not always being clear on her own motivations at the time.
  • "As unbelievable as it is, I loved him. Right. And I cared about him... I was just operating under this delusion that because he was so on the periphery... it wasn't going to pose any sort of problem." (23:49, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Ethics in Real-Time vs. Hindsight
  • She resisted giving prescriptive advice, claimed her involvement felt "irrelevant," and acknowledges her naivety in thinking personal and public realities wouldn't collide.
• Public Interest, Disclosure, and Boundaries
  • Pressed by Tim, Olivia defends her level of disclosure—saying she revealed all that was necessary and responsible, but would not detail every element, especially amid harassment campaigns and fear for her safety.
  • "I shared everything that I felt I responsibly could share, right? And I also... told the most honest story that I could possibly tell." (41:54, Olivia Nuzzi)
  • On requests for more disclosure: "It's like, how much more do I have to violate myself?" (33:52, Olivia Nuzzi)

6. Experience of Fear, Harassment, and Going into Hiding

• Threats and Fear
  • Olivia describes feeling physically and emotionally threatened in the wake of her public unraveling and after the 'politician’ betrayed her.
  • "I was terrified of the man I did not marry, and I was very worried about people knowing where I was. And... no one was gonna protect me... I felt very vulnerable in general." (55:25, Olivia Nuzzi)
• Digital Harassment and Gender
  • She highlights how the harassment campaign twisted public perception, particularly as political allies became reluctant to defend her due to tribal loyalties.
  • "Thoughtful people are quiet... it's disturbing to see people engage with this harassment... just because I am perceived..." (68:39, Olivia Nuzzi)

7. Crafting the Book: Structure and Inspirations

• Writing Process
  • Olivia wrote the book on her phone while walking in Malibu, capturing half-formed thoughts, then later fact-checking and editing.
  • She drew structural inspiration from Dante’s Inferno, with 'canto' referring to poetic divisions, and sought to render the experience of her disorienting last decade elliptically, with no chapters or acknowledgments.
• Thematic Symbolism
  • Ending imagery of a hawk and a drone symbolize uncertainty—threat versus reassurance.
  • "The book ends with the hawk. There's a hawk and a drone. The question is whether they're offering you reassurance or whether it's a threat. And I'm wondering... whether you feel like maybe it was a threat." (67:01, Tim Miller)
  • Olivia: "I feel more reassured than ever." (67:36, Olivia Nuzzi)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the purpose and pain of telling the truth:
  • "There's a certain faction... who are just never going to be happy with anything that I do, right? And that's fine. But I could have just not said anything... I could have not told you about my experience here." (56:54, Olivia Nuzzi)
• On being used and boundaries:
  • "Possibly, possibly. But I reveal those things, right? Like, that's... my way of telling you what I think." (32:31, Olivia Nuzzi)
• On the circularity of the last decade and personal transformation:
  • "This idea that I returned to a few times of the snake eating its tail. Right. And this feeling of the last 10 years being circular." (64:42, Olivia Nuzzi)
• On professional vs. personal integrity:
  • "Writing about this at all is an enormous risk that I've assumed." (56:54, Olivia Nuzzi)
• On family, grief, and gratitude:
  • "I'd rather have had him [her father] for a short time than someone else for a long time, you know." (71:03, Olivia Nuzzi)

Important Timestamps

• [03:54] – Olivia on why she wrote the book, and writing as a spiritual reckoning.
• [05:08] – Admitting and processing ethical failures in journalism.
• [11:08] – Spirituality, process failure, and making sense of personal and public mistakes.
• [15:16] – Losing perspective in politics and regaining it by stepping back.
• [24:59] – Relationship boundaries (with RFK) and journalist-source lines blurring.
• [29:42] – Fully recognizing, and exposing, self-delusion and emotional manipulation.
• [33:52] – Defending personal boundaries around what she has disclosed.
• [41:54] – On responsible disclosure versus public appetite for scandal.
• [55:25] – Laying low, going into hiding, and personal safety fears.
• [64:42] – The symbolism of cycles, Dante’s influence, the book’s elliptical form.
• [67:36] – Reassurance vs. threat—the end of the book and moving forward.

Tone & Language

Olivia’s tone is reflective, often raw, and marked by flashes of dry humor and stark self-awareness. She balances honesty with circumspection—willing to expose her flaws but holding specific lines of privacy regarding others’ actions and the full extent of what she lived through.

Tim Miller presses empathetically but persistently, sometimes playing devil’s advocate on behalf of the public’s right to know, sometimes channeling outrage at the powerful men in the story, but always returning to a tone of collegial respect.

Takeaways for Listeners

• American Canto is not a tell-all in the tabloid sense; it’s a measured, literary reckoning with what it means to fail, to be consumed by the vortex of modern political reality, and to emerge—if not unscathed, at least unbowed.
• Olivia Nuzzi provides a rare window into the dangers and costs—not only for democracy but for the individuals involved—of blurred lines between power, proximity, and truth in the Trump era and its aftermath.
• The book (and this conversation) probes the limits of confession, the responsibilities of those who witness power up close, and the irreducible challenge of restoring one’s own sense of reality in an age defined by unreality.

For anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the ethical, psychological, and existential stakes of frontline political reporting in the age of Trump, this episode and Nuzzi’s book are essential.