That said, Trump’s hopes of being re-elected depend on his appeal to his base, and his base support is eroding. A poll from earlier this month has him down a net of 10 points with Republicans, down 13 with white evangelicals and down 18 with suburban men. If I were looking at those numbers as the head of the Republican National Committee, I’d be thinking that Trump would be wise to declare that he won’t run for re-election. Whether he would do that is, of course, another question entirely.

Gail: Well, you’re presuming he has a life outside of this.

Bret: Depends on his legal jeopardy, I guess.

Gail: If the jeopardy level is high enough, he’d need to run again just because you can’t indict a sitting president. I for one do not want to imagine a 2020 campaign in which the base believes he’s a martyr who has to be saved from imprisonment.

Bret: Maybe Bob Mueller can offer him immunity if he promises not to run. O.K., now I’m dreaming.

Gail: We’re both trapped in an anti-Trumpian vortex where we agree about so much, but I know that deep down you’re a serious conservative, particularly on economic issues. So I want to ask about … oh God, Davos.

Bret: God is of no use in Davos, Gail. Go on.

Gail: Davos, as you may have heard, is an annual gathering in Switzerland where the economic and political elite come to have dinners and chat and pontificate. This year there were two things that interested me. One was that Anthony Scaramucci was there. This is the guy who lasted 11 days as White House communications director, appeared as a contestant on “Celebrity Big Brother” and then vanished from the series to reappear at Davos.

I truly believe that reality TV is a thermometer of our cultural mind-set. Maybe the Mooch connection is proof that Davos is indeed a magnet for the best and the brightest.

Bret: My long-held view of Davos is that nothing good that happens there is real, and nothing real that happens there is good. The Mooch’s presence this year proves both those points. Go on.