Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Peter Hamby.

In today’s edition, my conversation with the typically blunt, always entertaining Chris Christie on the state of the Republican primary race, his battle with Trump, and why he’s focused on Michigan after hoping to place in New Hampshire.

But first, Abby Livingston with the latest from Capitol Hill…

• The Great Decoupling: Leadership in both parties had planned to marry a border security bill with funding for Israel and Ukraine, but while there’s still confidence in a spending bill for Israel, the mood around Ukraine is increasingly grave. The pessimism peaked on Monday, after Sen. Chris Murphy, the lead Democrat in those discussions, said that “there’s no path based upon the place where things were at the end of last week.”

  Murphy’s negotiating partner, Republican James Lankford, pushed back on such strong language. But it’s still a striking comment from Murphy, a senior member of the Foreign Relations Committee who has repeatedly proven eager to cut deals with Republicans on controversial topics—most notably on gun regulation with John Cornyn. Alas, even Cornyn and Murphy were going at it by late Monday, with the Texas Republican saying Democrats misunderstood the parameters of the negotiation, and the Connecticut Democrat responding with a declaration that he’s “wasted the last 3 weeks of my life since this was never a negotiation—just a take it or leave it demand,” accompanied by an upside-down smiley face. (It’s never a good sign in high-stakes negotiating when emojis become a form of communication.)

• Out of Gas: Also on Monday, White House O.M.B. Director Shalanda Young sent a letter to the Hill urging congress to greenlight more funding as quickly as possible, warning that leaving Washington for the winter break without replenishing the coffers will have a direct effect on the Ukrainian battlefield. The problem? It’s more than a policy stalemate. Simply put, the Hill is exhausted. A senior House Democratic staffer told me that staffers and members alike just want to go home for the holidays. It may sound callous, but there is such a sense of hopelessness around Capitol Hill that it borders on fatalism.

• A Time for Choosing: The frustrations on the Hill are most evident in the crush of retirement announcements in recent weeks. But while retirements on this scale are usually a leading indicator of which party is likely to take control in the next election—with members stepping down if they anticipate their district will become too competitive, or if they sense their party will lose the majority—this cycle is plainly different.

  Nearly all of the announced retirements so far fall into four camps: ambitious members who are running statewide (who account for most of the retirements, ranging from Katie Porter to Alex Mooney); senior members from safe districts who seem like they are on the verge of Howard Beale-style meltdowns (Ken Buck); members who are in their 80s (Anna Eshoo, Grace Napolitano); and members who’ve dealt with health issues (Dan Kildee, Jennifer Wexton). Some of those retiring will leave behind competitive open-seat races. We should know more next week, when two of the biggest delegations, California and Texas, have their filing deadlines.

But in New Hampshire, where Christie is betting on a town hall strategy and making appeals to independents and Republicans who want to put Trump in the rearview, he’s made a slow climb in the polls. He’s now moved into third place in the Granite State, ahead of Ron DeSantis, and Christie is now putting Nikki Haley in his sights, attacking her on abortion and her equivocations on Trump just as she’s making a play for New Hampshire voters, too.

All of it might be futile—a final grasp at relevance, a desperate fight for a distant second place—but Christie is suddenly putting added pressure on Haley and DeSantis as they vie to emerge as Trump’s singular rival. And of course, the New Hampshire primary always has the capacity to surprise and shake up a presidential race. So this weekend I called Christie to discuss all that and more: Haley’s boomlet, abortion questions, the war in Israel, a possible No Labels candidacy, and whether Trump should go to prison. (The following conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.)

Chris Christie: I believe principally the states should make these decisions. We’ve been fighting this for 50 years. I’m saying that the Supreme Court was wrong to take it out of the hands of the states. And now, when we get a decision like Dobbs, that puts it back in the hands of the states. There’s some people who want to make it federal again. But the people should be making these judgments. You know, Peter, when you look at this House trying to pick a speaker and this Senate trying to just promote military people, why would you put life in the hands of those folks? I’m much more comfortable with having it in the hands of the people in the states.

And secondly, it’s very clear, given the voting in Michigan and Ohio and Kansas, just to name a few, that not only is there not any consensus in the country on this, but there’s certainly no consensus around a six-week ban. So, when Nikki Haley is up on the debate stage speaking about how she doesn’t want to divide the country, but then she’s across from [conservative activist] Bob Vander Plaats in Iowa, and all of a sudden she’s for a six-week ban… You know, we can’t have people running for president who say everything to everybody.

Well, wasn’t she saying something sort of similar to what you’re saying? Which is like, if she were still governor in South Carolina, a six-week ban works for them?

She was asked if she would sign a six-week ban, and she said she would. I mean, like, that’s it. That’s her position now, I think. Or maybe her position is both. But, you know, we can’t tell. And I think, you know, notice she didn’t mention anything about a six-week ban until she was in front of Bob Vander Plaats. Do you think that’s coincidental? That kinda just struck her in Iowa. But when she’s in New Hampshire, you never hear her say a word about a six-week ban.

When I was at CNN, I covered the event you did in Union, New Jersey, in January 2014, when you signed a bill offering in-state college tuition for Dreamers. That was a big part of your brand at the time. I’m curious, if you were president, would you support a Dream Act, or is your position on DACA and Dreamers mostly similar to abortion, that it should be left up to the states? Or is that something you’d pursue at the federal level?

Well, look, I would be willing to consider that stuff as part of an overall immigration reform package. There would be things that we’d have to get to reform immigration, more merit-based immigration, E-Verify. The problem has been, over the last 20 years, that everybody digs their heels in and says what they won’t do. And nobody will move toward some type of deal to be made where we can actually change all these immigration laws that are causing all the influx, in part, that we’re having at the southern border. So, I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it, but it would have to be part of an overall, bigger deal.

I wanna ask you one more thing about Nikki Haley, just a simple question. Why do you have a better chance of beating Donald Trump in this primary than Nikki Haley or Ron DeSantis?

Because I’m actually trying to beat Trump. I mean, you can’t say things like, “He was the right president for the right time, and for some reason, drama follows him wherever he goes.” I could tell you why! I mean, let’s not make him an innocent victim here. He creates this atmosphere for himself, because he can’t control himself, and he thinks it’s politically advantageous for him. The problem with both Nikki and Ron is that they won’t take him on directly. You know, she put out a new ad that says, “Let’s leave the drama and chaos off the path behind us.”

Well, what the hell does that mean? She’s trying to act like she’s saying something negative about Trump, but God forbid she says anything negative about Trump. Well, how do you expect to beat the guy if you’re not going to differentiate yourself? If you’re not gonna tell people why he shouldn’t be president? He’s been the nominee twice. Why should they pick you instead of him if you won’t tell them what is wrong with him? And she won’t do that. And she’s trying to have it both ways. It’s the same thing as what she’s doing on abortion. She’s trying to have it both ways. And I don’t think people ultimately vote for that or respect it.

Michigan. Michigan would be the next place we would focus on. They have an open primary there. Independents will vote, and I think that’s a place where we can actually do very well. So, we would compete in South Carolina, but assuming Nikki was still in the race, you would assume that she would do okay there. I don’t know that she’d win. And if you don’t win your own home state, I don’t know how you stay in the race. But yeah, our next big focus would be Michigan.

I just did Sarah Longwell’s podcast, The Focus Group, where we talked about Gen Z voters. One of the focus groups we watched was young Republicans and Republican leaders. Some support Trump, some don’t. But when they were talking about the conflict in Gaza, a few of them said—unprompted—they don’t think Israel would’ve been attacked by Hamas if Trump were still president. They kept saying things like, “Because Trump is strong, the world fears Trump,” etcetera. That he was so muscular on foreign policy that he intimidated other countries. Do you think that’s true? That Hamas would’ve thought twice about invading Israel if Trump were president?

No. It’s ridiculous. Because first of all, Trump’s an isolationist. Trump did everything he could to get America uninvolved in the world when he was president. So the idea that somehow Donald Trump would’ve done… what? Send American troops over there? What evidence do we have that Donald Trump would send American troops anywhere that they weren’t already? So, no, I think that’s kind of ridiculous. And I do think it’s emblematic of a talking point mentality, you know? Trump’s “strong” because he yells a lot. He says nasty things about people. But I don’t think the rest of the world buys it. I think the rest of the world looks at a potential Trump presidency with fear—not fear because he’s strong, but fear because he sides so often with autocrats around the world. Like Xi and Putin and Kim Jong Un, whom he has nothing but great things to say about.

You’ve said Trump will be convicted next spring. I assume you’re talking about the January 6th case?

Yeah.

But just stepping back, as a former prosecutor, which do you think is the strongest of these big four cases against Trump?

The strongest is the documents case in Miami. The January 6th case is next. Atlanta is third. And New York is a distant last.

Why is the classified documents case the strongest in your mind?

From what I’ve seen from the indictment, I think they have the very best evidence in the documents case. But I also think the January 6th case is strong and has been made very strong by reaching an immunity agreement with [former White House Chief of Staff] Mark Meadows. The fact is, you don’t need immunity if you haven’t committed crimes. So, you have to assume that what Meadows is going to do is get up on that stand and say that he committed crimes at Trump’s direction. And that Trump committed crimes also. There’s no other reason to give somebody immunity other than that. Because immunity is something that’s not given very frequently, and when it is, it’s usually because the person who’s been given immunity has evidence you couldn’t get any place else and has corroboration for that evidence. Once Meadows made a deal, I became completely convinced that he’ll be convicted in that case this spring.

How do you think about sentencing a former president? Like, say he’s convicted. I mean, is it house arrest? Is it jail? Like, how do you sentence somebody like him?

What I would say is, look, you know, everybody else who participated in January 6th got jail time. And, you know, I think it was very hard for that judge to have sentenced a whole bunch of other participants in the riot on Capitol Hill to prison, but not the guy who was the inspiration for, and encourager of the riot. If you’re a judge, I think it would be very hard to not sentence him to a jail sentence.

Now, I will tell you this: When I was a U.S. attorney, with people of that age, I often tried to avoid them doing jail time, because, you know, people of that age just don’t physically react well to the circumstances in prison. Then you’d be giving somebody a death sentence. So that’s probably why the judge would consider house arrest. But it would only be because of his age, not because of his conduct or who he was.

You didn’t officially work in the Trump White House, but having been in those rooms, what kind of people do you think would be signing up to work in a second Trump administration? And what advice would you give Republicans thinking about working for a second Trump administration?

Don’t go. Don’t go. He will ruin you if you go in that building. And you’ll not be able to do much of anything to try to protect the country. Let’s put it this way: The people who will work in that White House are not the very best, if you were to get there. When you look, I think it’s like 40 of the 44 people who served at cabinet level have said they would not work for him again. That should tell you something.

Looking ahead to the general, there’s these third-party independent candidates, maybe a No Labels candidate. Maybe R.F.K. Jr., Cornel West, Jill Stein, etcetera. Do you agree that those people being on the ballot generally help Trump and hurt Biden?

I think Cornel West probably hurts Biden. I think R.F.K. Jr. is a jump ball. I think he could wind up drawing equally from both of them. And then on No Labels, who knows? But I think, with all of it, none of it happens—at least on the No Labels side—unless Donald Trump’s the nominee. If we have a different Republican nominee, I think a lot of the third-party activity becomes much less relevant.

Would you be open to a No Labels run if you don’t win the nomination?

No.

Last thing: I saw you on CNN the other day. You go on Morning Joe. You even did Pod Save America. Do you even watch any conservative media? What’s your engagement with, like, Ben Shapiro or Steve Bannon’s podcast? Do you watch OANN?

I watch Fox News. I’ve been on Newsmax any number of times. A lot of appearances on Eric Bolling’s show. I’ve been on with Greta. I read The Wall Street Journal. So, you know, I engage, but it’s not like I have a lot of time to watch anything at this point. To tell the truth, Peter, most of the time, when I get back to my hotel room in New Hampshire or wherever I am, I usually turn on SportsCenter and watch ESPN. At that point, it’s usually pretty late and I don’t really engage unless there’s something really hot going on.