Bret: I only worry about deficits in extended periods of slow growth. Nobody thinks of Carter-era stagflation as a prosperous time for the United States, but the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio was low: just under 31 percent in 1980 as opposed to around twice that in the middle of the Clinton boom. And there are times when the government has legitimate reasons to spend a lot of money and pile on debt, like winning World War II under Roosevelt or the Cold War under Reagan. We should never hold public prosperity hostage for the sake of a statistical artifact dear mostly to anally retentive deficit scolds preaching “The end is nigh!”

But I think you’ve put your finger on something essential. Bipartisanship is moribund under this president because he’s thrashed the concept and possibility of trust in politics. There was a brief ray of hope last month when he seemed ready to strike a deal on DACA, but that seems to have collapsed, too.

Speaking of trust, do you trust General Kelly?

Gail: Do you remember those days of yore when everybody presumed Trump wouldn’t blow up the planet because he had those three sensible generals hovering in the background? Generals who were undoubtedly working out a plan among themselves for how to put a lid on the president if he tried to drop a bomb on North Korea?

Seems so quaint now. As out of date as the theory that Ivanka and Jared would turn him into a social moderate so their New York friends wouldn’t give them the cold shoulder.

How about you?

Bret: Trump single-handedly destroys the theory of containment. Nothing and nobody contains him. And he tarnishes everything and everyone around him. He’s like a hyper-empowered schlemiel — I’m using the Yiddish word for the guy who proverbially spills his borscht all over you — while turning the rest of us into his schlimazels, the ones who get spilled on.

The latest political fiasco involving Trump’s condolence calls is such a case in point. This should be the one thing every president ought to be able to get right. But Trump couldn’t help but turn an accusatory political finger at Barack Obama, which was wrong on fact, wretched as principle and dumb as politics. And then Kelly, for whom I used to have nothing but admiration, soiled his own moment by defending the president and needlessly pointing an accusatory finger at Representative Frederica Wilson, which once again turned out to be wrong on fact, wretched as principle and dumb as politics.

When did people forget when to know how to leave well enough alone? Like, you know, Bill O’Reilly.

Gail: Yow, I’m not sure the concept of “let alone” is one O’Reilly ever mastered.