Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest, our new daily politics newsletter focused on the inside conversations on Capitol Hill and K Street, within the White House, the Pentagon, and more. I’m Tara Palmeri; on behalf of my colleagues Julia Ioffe, Tina Nguyen, and Peter Hamby, thanks for all the tips and feedback.

Tonight, my conversation with Reed Galen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project. We discuss No Labels, Trump vs. Biden, and why a third-party presidential candidate is destined to be a spoiler (for now). But first…

• The Casey Trap: Much has been discussed, including in my last email, about whether Ron DeSantis can truly attack Donald Trump after he declined to counterpunch following Trump’s baseless “groomer” accusation. Is he even capable of doing it? Will he alienate Trump’s base by becoming a mortal enemy of their anti-hero hero? Maggie Haberman recently reported that the governor is hoping to hold off on announcing his presidential bid until late spring, but Trump seems intent on luring him into the ring far sooner.

  Trump being Trump, insinuating that DeSantis was a possible sexual predator was not low enough. Trump allies have also identified the governor’s wife, Casey, as a potential target that might get DeSantis to engage. Demuring on attacks against his own wife could backfire, as was the case with Ted Cruz, who came off looking like a spineless weenie. Trump and his allies, I’m told, will amp up the perception that Casey is the puppet master, the real brains behind an operation that elevated a no-name congressman into a presidential contender. They will also float questions about how she pays for clothing, hair styling, and makeup that make her look like a veritable Jackie O doppelganger on a public servant’s salary. But let’s face it, they’ll probably go lower. It’s all playing toward an interesting outcome. Trump may have been able to kneecap some of the most experienced politicians on the right, but if there’s one thing everyone in DeSantis world knows—you never cross Casey.

• Feinstein’s Schiff-t: Nancy Pelosi’s endorsement of Adam Schiff was the first domino to fall as the California Democratic establishment coalesces around a candidate to fill Dianne Feinstein’s Senate seat in 2024. Feinstein’s aides are starting to send smoke signals that the 89-year-old is ready to announce her retirement after this term, and it could happen in the coming weeks as allies are being notified. (But, of course, with a person that age, decisions and thinking often change on a dime.) After she makes the jump, it’s expected that she will support Schiff over Katie Porter.

  Pelosi and Feinstein, two trailblazing Democratic women in California, were always going to be in lockstep on who they would endorse, a Pelosi source told me. And Pelosi will fight like hell to make sure that Schiff is elected after encouraging him to bow out of the leadership race to make way for Hakeem Jeffries. People around Feinstein are already saying that they’re supporting Schiff, but they’re just waiting until Feinstein tells them to make it official with her retirement. “There’s too much internal San Francisco politics involved for Pelosi to burn the house down on the way out,” said a Democratic strategist. “That’s what has sparked so many of the Feinstein faithful to posture the way they’re posturing right now.” A Spokesperson for Feinstein reiterated that she will make an announcement in the coming weeks, adding “any comment about who she will endorse if she decides not to stay in the race is premature.”

• McCarthy’s Mob Talk: Kevin McCarthy has started deploying some Italian organized crime vernacular to describe his caucus. The latest mafioso slang is his use of “Five Families” for the five caucuses within the House G.O.P. “The chyrons on CNN are ‘McCarthy addresses meetings with the Five Families.’ What?!” said one Italian American Democratic aide. “Leave it to an Irish guy to use Italian tropes.” Some of Pelosi’s allies wonder if she would have been afforded the same freedoms to use mob terms as an actual Italian American. Fuhgeddaboudit!

As I’ve been reporting for months, the group has been meticulously poll-testing permutations of a Joe Manchin-Larry Hogan-Lisa Murkowski ticket. They even met with Mike Pompeo in Dallas to talk about his aspirations. Their donor retreat/strategy session in Miami this month featured Manchin, Hogan, Susan Collins, Kyrsten Sinema and Tony Gonzalez. And perhaps they really have a lane in a political moment when just 31 percent of Democrats want Biden to seek another term and only 44 percent of Republicans want Trump to run again.

To separate the wheat from the chaff, I spoke to one of the few people with real experience running third party campaigns: Reed Galen, co-founder of The Lincoln Project, the band of former Republican strategists with a mission to take out Trump. Galen, who was John McCain’s deputy campaign manager in a prior life, has been heavily involved in the independent reform political space since Trump barreled onto the national stage in 2015. Is this really the moment for No Labels to break through, or are they just opportunistically raising cash? Will a botched attempt alienate them further and piss off donors? We cover it all and much, much more.

Reed Galen: I’m generally for anything that’s going to open up the system electorally. I usually have a litmus test that says, The more the two parties hate it, the more I’m for it. Because there’s a reason they hate it: Nobody wants more competition in politics than I do. I think we’re in a calcified system that has led to where we are and it’s only going to get worse.

Why hasn’t the third-party breakthrough happened yet?

The thinking is, you take a little bit from the left and a little bit from the right, because that’s where everyone is anyway, and people will come to you, but it never works. And why doesn’t it work? Because it lacks two things: One, an actual bonafide leader, and Two, belief. The last major party in this country to have major success was the Republican party and what was it founded on? The abolition of slavery.

I could make the argument that 2028—not 2024, after a Biden reelection—would be a time when you could think about it. Because theoretically, the boomers and silent generation will have moved on for good. Both of the parties will be scrambled with new voices and you could make the argument that we really need a reset. I could make that argument, but in 2024, it’s a terrible idea because it will reelect Trump.

What if the single issue is making sure Trump or Biden don’t make it to the White House?

I guess so, but then that has to be your whole thing.

It seems like that is No Labels’ thing. That’s why they’re calling it an “insurance policy.”

You’re not going to win so you’re just ensuring that the house burns down. Listen, I’d love to be wrong...

When did you first get involved in third-party politics?

In late 2015, I was approached by this C.E.O. type, not a well-known figure, when it looked like by that fall it was going to be Trump and Hillary. We did a ton of research and a ton of rethinking about how you run a presidential because you can’t do it like the two parties do it, right? You don’t have ballot access; both parties were going to raise and spend a couple of billion. We didn’t think you needed to do that if you can demonstrate that this isn’t a joke, this isn’t a lark. And then there would be a ton of earned media coverage that would drive money against the investment. That person decided not to do it.

Fast forward four years, I was involved when [former Starbucks C.E.O.] Howard Schultz was considering an independent bid. Again, you had to go through a lot of research. He was someone of means who could self-finance the campaign, but you saw what happened with him. The Democratic party, which he was most associated with, attacked viciously and said ‘Don’t do this, you’re going to ultimately elect Trump.’

Right, they haven’t been through electoral politics at all. Except for maybe in the context of being a donor or in the context of being a C.E.O., where they have a built-in sort of constituency, employees, and they are generally favorable to them. Without real political experience, putting yourself for the first time into the greatest political meat grinder humanity’s ever invented is a rude awakening and how could it not be?

We looked at it, we tried to devise several different strategies, but the bottom line is you have to overcome ballot access. You can do that with time and money. If you have somebody on the center right, then you have the Republicans attacking. If you have somebody who’s seen a center left, you have the Democrats attacking them. If you have some sort of unity/fusion ticket, you could see a situation in which the campaign manager of the Republican candidate called the campaign manager of the Democratic person and said, you know, let’s sink this thing now. Let’s never even let it get oxygen.

So you think there’s just a natural pull to the parties and that they will ultimately squash whatever comes along.

The immune response from the duopoly will be massive. And that could be in the ballot access process. If there’s a comma out of place on a petition or a form or something. Then a secretary of state—a Republican or Democrat—could say ‘You’re thrown off the ballot.’ Now you have to go to court, right? It’s not as easy as collecting 175,000 petitions to get on the ballot in Arizona.

There are ballot access rules for parties, there are ballot access rules for independent candidates, there are ballot access rules for independent presidential candidates. There are all of these hurdles. They are all designed to keep new competitors and entrants out of it.

It seems like a lot of work to get on the ballot. Can No Labels just give ballot access to a candidate?

No Labels is going through a process to put a No Labels ballot line on all 50 states. That doesn’t entitle them to decide who goes on that ballot line. There has to be some open process. Americans Elect in 2012 couldn’t figure out how to make it work. If Larry Hogan wanted to run as an independent, unless he had his own money to spend, he would be subject to F.E.C. rules. He’d have to raise the money $3,300 at a time. If No Labels isn’t a National Party that already has these ballot lines, as I understand the law, they can’t simply say Governor Hogan, here you go. There has to be some sort of nominating process.

The Republicans and Democrats have caucuses and primaries, their candidates are nominated at a convention. If No Labels was going to do a convention, who are these delegates, what makes up the qualifications for a delegate? How can a candidate gain 501 delegates to earn the nomination? Otherwise, just simply saying ‘I’m an independent’ doesn’t get you anything. You can’t just give them the ballot line. It could be that no one else chooses to contest, and then Larry Hogan is the only one, but it’s still a process. But nowadays, you could see a whole bunch of people try to sway the outcome because it would theoretically be a semi-public process.

Okay, so let’s say they figure out a nominating process. How do you get 270 electoral votes?

You have to take somewhere between 17 and 22 percent from both parties. And it’s not going to work out evenly like that, it’s going to be more from one, and not from another. And that’s where the make-ups of the party will play a part. Republicans are homogenous, they are 90 percent white. They will fall in line. They will vote for Trump or whoever it is in vast numbers. Whereas I think there will be conservative Democrats and soft Republicans who might otherwise vote for the Democratic candidate, who will say, Oh well, I’ve got a choice. Is that choice viable? Probably not. But it gives them a chance to say, I didn’t have to vote for X, I got to vote for Y. Here’s the other point too. In the psychological makeup of voters, do you want an independent candidate? Yes. Do you want more choices in politics? Yes. Would you vote for a third party candidate? No. Why? I don’t want my vote wasted.

You also have to get to 15 percent to get on the debate stage, and the Republicans and Democrats would try to do everything they can to keep you off. They would up their fire on the third party candidate starting in June 2024. Let’s say you get to 40 percent in each of these states, you’ve taken 20 percent from each party, that seems like a lot. I’m not sure how you do it.

So you go through with it, you find your unity ticket, and then Donald Trump is reelected President of the United States because 8 percent of conservative Democrats and 2 percent of disaffected Republicans that could have gone to Joe Biden go to some Governor Bob Smith of Illinois, whatever freaking state it is, it’s doesn’t matter. Now what have you done? Well, you’ve saddled us with Donald Trump for four more years, maybe forever. You’ve put American Democracy in the crosshairs. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t do this, I just think you have to make the decision: is this the best time to do this?

What do you think?

For me the answer is no. If the house is on fire, is this really the time to remodel it?

And yet No Labels is able to raise so much money year after year. Clearly someone believes this is possible.

Their donors are wealthy people who want the status quo. The system, as much as they dislike it, works for them. Mixed with a bunch of people who don’t like either party. [No Labels founder] Nancy [Jacobson] said that to me in a phone call with them on Friday: “I don’t like either party.” Mixed with, if we could just get back to bipartisanship yadda yadda yadda everything will be fine. I call it normative utopianism. It doesn’t exist. The world we were in doesn’t exist anymore. But they have raised a hell of a lot of money on this idea of bipartisanship because it makes these people feel good.

Why does everyone think they’re a spoiler?

You’ve got to think about how close these votes are. In Georgia in 2020, 50,000 votes that should have gone to Trump just stayed home, which gave Biden enough to get over the line, 11,000 or whatever. But let’s say those 50,000 votes, plus 15,000 votes that would have gone to Biden, now go to this third person—now Trump wins by 2,800 votes. You take enough people that wouldn’t have participated because they didn’t like Trump and then give them someplace else to go.

At the Lincoln Project, we stake our reputation on these soft Republicans that want nothing to do with Trump and the G.O.P. They helped us defeat Trump in 2020. We understood what they were worried about. We believe that extends to 10 to 12 percent of Republicans that are either gettable for a Democrat or, as in Georgia, they’ll stay home. We don’t care which one they do. If you give them a quasi-acceptable choice, they might take it and that’s where the spoiler issue comes in.

What if a Republican like Larry Hogan is at the top of the ticket?

It takes from Biden. Because Larry Hogan’s party is 10 or 12 percent of the voters at this point. Republicans are loyal. What’s the old trope? Democrats fall in love, Republicans fall in line.

Speaking of love and hate. There’s a real visceral hatred for No Label in Washington from both sides. Why?

They don’t play nicely with others, and I’ve seen that personally. They hold themselves as being better than everyone else. They have this problem solvers caucus, they want to work together across the aisle. Everyone else is partisan. Look, those are the sentiments that maybe I shared two years ago. Maybe I’ll share them again in January 2025 when Biden is inaugurated for a second time.