We all know it.

heard it.

One of President Trump's famous catchphrases.

He says, I hire the best people.

But media scrutiny is throwing that into doubt.

I'm Brian Stelter and this is the Reliable Sources Podcast. Our weekly chance to go in depth

with media leaders and newsmakers talking about how the news gets made.

With me this week is Alexander Nazarian.

He's a national correspondent for Yahoo News out with a brand new book titled The Best People.

The subtitle is Trump's Cabinet and the Siege on Washington.

He's documenting the scandals of the Trump administration, but also some of the important successes

that have been overlooked.

Alexander, thanks for joining me. Great to see you.

Brian, thank you so much for having me. Where did the idea for this book come from?

Actually, we had wanted to do this book,

Heshette and I, the publishing company,

wanted to do a book on Scott Pruitt, which would have been quite a rich book on its own,

of Scott Pruitt being the former EPA Administrator, who's responsible for many of the environmental rollbacks under the Trump administration

until he was fired or left.

Then we realized that Pruitt was a symptom of a problem that was pervasive across this administration which was

people charged with carrying out Trump's promises, his populist promises and

his economic promises and his economic promises people who just had no interest in actually doing so and

...