Clip: Why Americans are split over Trump's Cabinet nominees and their qualifications

Jeffrey Goldberg: I want to talk a little bit in the few minutes that we have left about the cognitive environment or this split in the country, two teams, MAGA, anti-MAGA right now. And there's this very interesting newsletter I read, Pirate Wires, by this guy, Mike Solana. It gives you really good insight into MAGA thinking in the Silicon Valley, people who are supporting Donald Trump.

And he wrote, Trump nominated RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, rounding out a string of appointments that each have some part of Washington in, quote, disbelief. Others include Tom, quote, they can be deported together, Homan as borders are, Pete Hegseth as sec def, and then in parentheses, this is the part that's really interesting to me, a Fox News star, according to libs, liberals, a decorated combat vet, according to MAGA, right?

And so, to me, this is like a very interesting insight because both things are true. He's a Fox host. And if you're anti-Trump, you're like, how could you possibly nominate a Fox host, a morning host, no less, or a weekend host, to be secretary of defense? And nothing wrong with being a television host apparently, but from the MAGA side, from the Donald Trump side, it's like, hey, why are you disparaging this decorated combat veteran?

And so my question is, help us understand why everything is so -- I forget, Mark, this is like an essay question I'm going to give you. But it's like the qualifications that people on the Donald Trump side see in these people are just not seen at all by the other side and vice versa. Are we and the media -- do we have to do a better job of explaining why people see a Hegseth as qualified for this job?

Mark Leibovich: You know what? I hate to -- I mean, I don't -- there are so many theories out there on why Democrats have lost the working class vote, why they've lost Pennsylvania, why, you know, people aren't watching or aren't reading The New York Times or The Atlantic out in the middle of these nuanced arguments and if only the Democrats had been more nuanced.

I mean, I think the biggest single factor here is the information environment. I mean, there are massive swaths of America in actually pretty much every state, briefly, the red parts of everything who are not anywhere near these kinds of conversations and who are, you know, mostly -- you know, the internet, whatever it is, the information channels, you know, make it any kind of education about reality.

I mean, again, there's not like an easy way to tie this up with a bow, but it's not -- we're just not talking the same way.

Jeffrey Goldberg: But, Elizabeth, yes, I mean, you run The New York Times Bureau in Washington. You're right at the center of this. How do you figure this out going forward so that people understand on both sides why the other side might think the way it does?

Elizabeth Bumiller: Well, we go out into the country. We -- I mean, the national desk does. We're here in Washington, but we had a conversation this morning at The Times about why don't -- shouldn't we go out and ask Trump supporters, people we actually interviewed for our polling, you know, who talked to us, about what they make of these selections. And our guess is that they're not paying very much attention to them at all. We're obsessed with them in Washington, and they're like, oh, that's fine, a military veteran, good for the Department of Defense. That's a good idea, or if they know it at all. That was the -- if they're paying the slightest bit of attention to the cabinet.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Right.

Elizabeth Bumiller: I mean, so I think Donald Trump made people feel good. His supporters feel good. There was an emotional connection. He was a showman. We can go on and on and on about what he did that is completely --

Jeffrey Goldberg: We ran a piece the other day by Mike Pesco that argued that people see the Democrats as the H.R. department of political parties. You know, it's there to kind of make you feel vaguely bad about things and there might be quite a bit to that.

Elizabeth Bumiller: I mean, he's defied all political conventional wisdom for ten years now.

Jeffrey Goldberg: Look, this has been a great conversation. Thank you. Unfortunately, we need to leave it there for now.