Sex scandals and politics go hand in hand.
This Presidential Election proved to be no different.
And Donald Trump’s link to one sex scandal is 2024’s most bizarre story.
The Olivia Nuzzi-Robert F. Kennedy Jr. relationship
Journalist Oliver Darcy rolled a hand grenade into the 2024 election by breaking the story that Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and New York Magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi engaged in a sexting relationship where the two exchanged raunchy text messages and Nuzzi allegedly sent some suggestive photos.
Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump was supposed to help Trump appeal to young males who don’t normally engage in politics.
But now Trump is reportedly obsessing over the scandal and if it will damage his campaign.
Puck’s Tara Palmeri reported that “the former president has found himself captivated in recent days by a series of less-pertinent micro-dramas. Trump, always a consummate gossip, is ‘obsessed’ with the sexting scandal involving Olivia Nuzzi, the star New York magazine reporter who recently inspected his ear, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who recently endorsed him for president.”
Palmeri added that Trump personally reached out to Kennedy to make sure the 70-year-old never had any kind of physical relationship with the 31-year-old Nuzzi.
“In fact, I’m told from multiple sources that Trump called R.F.K. Jr. after the news broke to inquire if it was true that they’d had a digital relationship, and asked if they’d engaged in anything more than the swapping of ‘demure’ nudes. ‘[Kennedy] denied the whole thing to Trump,’ said a source with direct knowledge. ‘He said he hardly knows her. He said he met her one time,'” Palmeri added.
Nuzzi and Kennedy’s relationship
Nuzzi and Kennedy began their flirtation last fall when Nuzzi joined Kennedy on the trail to report on his campaign.
Vanity Fair reported that “toward the end of November the two had resolved their differences and a ‘flirtation’ via text had begun that would grow more intense over time. The ‘digital relationship,’ as it has become known, between a married 70-year-old and an engaged 31-year-old would go on for several months lasting until late August. Like all relationships—even, or maybe even especially, those pursued via phone—it was multilayered and it was complicated, intense at times, dormant at others. Both parties appear to agree on just one thing: It never became physical.”
Nuzzi’s fiancé – POLITICO reporter Ryan Lizza – revealed he broke off their engagement in August when he found out about the text messages between Nuzzi and Kennedy.
This story guarantees that any podcast Kennedy appears on, or campaign trail event he attends, will attract questions about the affair with Nuzzi.
Only reporters actually care about this story since it involves their industry, but it gives them a hook to create negative coverage about Trump and one of his surrogates, instead of covering whatever message Kennedy intends to communicate to the audience of voters he is looking to attract to the Trump coalition.
