It's the media buzz meter with Howard Kurtz.

There is nothing more quintessentially Washington than being fired in the press.

It's a ritual that anybody who's appointed goes through, ordeal, you might say, inside the Beltway.

I mean, there were rumors for months that Christy Knoem was going to be canned as the head of Homeland

Security until she finally was. Rumors also about Pam Bondi, who was pushed out as Attorney

General. Well, the latest of victim, Martyquarie, who yesterday resigned, and I put

this in air quotes because he was actually fired, as head of the FDA, the FDA commissioner.

And the weird thing about this is his professional demise, and this is a guy who's a cancer

surgeon at Johns Hopkins, you know, highly qualified,

certainly, came in a whole series of leaks.

Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, all quoting multiple sources as saying

President has decided to dump Macri.

Sometimes when it's one paper, you know, one source can be wrong,

but it's kind of one uncontradicted by the White House

or they put out some pablum statement.

You know, the thing about being a high-level appointee is,

president has full confidence in you until he doesn't.

And so as these stories are reaching a fever pitch,

a reporter asked Donald Trump about it,

and he said, I don't know anything about it.

I've been reading about it, but I don't know anything about it.

And that was a falsehood.

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