Jeanine Pirro had had it up to here with Doug Burgum. The famously voluble U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia strode into the Oval Office late Monday with her future on the line and the interior secretary, whom she privately called an incompetent liar, in her cross hairs.

A few hours earlier — in front of the cameras, from the Resolute Desk — President Trump had accused Ms. Pirro, an ally and friend from New York going back decades, of “folding like an umbrella” and “choking” after she withdrew charges against a man accused of destroying the lining of his beloved but shoddily renovated Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Why was he so angry at her? Because Ms. Pirro had dared to publicly demolish one of his most cherished narratives, promoted by Mr. Burgum, that vandals — and not a contractor hired by the Interior Department to do a rushed job — had defaced a Washington landmark.

Mr. Trump raged against Ms. Pirro in private on Monday. Then he raged a little to reporters. Rumors she would be fired burbled through West Wing. Then he raged a little bit more before hosting a high-drama, face-to-face meeting with Ms. Pirro at the White House worthy of two decorated veterans of confrontational reality TV.