At the top of his program today, The Lead‘s Jake Tapper took a swipe at President Donald Trump for not personally informing Secretary of State Rex Tillerson that he was firing the former Exxon CEO.

“The man made famous for telling people ‘You’re fired!’ doesn’t seem to be able to say to it people’s faces,” the CNN anchor snarked, obviously referencing Trump’s previous job as host of The Apprentice.

Tillerson noted in his emotional farewell statement this afternoon that Trump called him around noon today, roughly three hours after the president took to Twitter to announce Tillerson’s termination. A since-fired State Department employee said this morning that Tillerson found out he was fired when he saw Trump’s tweet.

Tapper also remarked on the fact that within a 24-hour period, three top Trump administration officials had been axed, tossing out a Game of Thrones reference by noting it “wasn’t quite the Red Wedding.”

The CNN host went on to bring up a December tweet by Trump in which he called reports that he was contemplating replacing Tillerson with CIA Director Mike Pompeo within the next few months “fake news.”

Once again we see the president’s definition of “fake news” — accurate news the president doesn’t like being reported. The Tillerson departure has been in the works for months. https://t.co/xXpBS0Fiob — Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) March 13, 2018

“Another reminder the president uses the term fake news to mean news that is accurate but I don’t like seeing it reported,” he stated.

Watch the clip above, via CNN.

[image via screengrab]

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Follow Justin Baragona on Twitter: @justinbaragona

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