President Trump Donald John TrumpOmar fires back at Trump over rally remarks: 'This is my country' Pelosi: Trump hurrying to fill SCOTUS seat so he can repeal ObamaCare Trump mocks Biden appearance, mask use ahead of first debate MORE slammed Bob Woodward after excerpts were released of the Watergate reporter's latest book detailing the inner workings of the Trump White House.

“It’s just another bad book. He’s had a lot of credibility problems," Trump told The Daily Caller in an interview in the Oval Office. "I probably would have preferred to speak to him, but maybe not. I think it probably wouldn’t have made a difference in the book. He wanted to write the book a certain way."

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“It’s just nasty stuff. I never spoke to him. Maybe I wasn’t given messages that he called. I probably would have spoken to him if he’d called, if he’d gotten through. For some reason I didn’t get messages on it,” he added.

Trump denied specific allegations and said the stories could have come from disgruntled employees or were perhaps “made up by the author.”

One such allegation contained in the book was that chief of staff John Kelly John Francis KellyMORE called the president an “idiot" — an assertion Kelly himself denied on Tuesday.

“The idea I ever called the President an idiot is not true,” Kelly said in a statement released after the excerpts were published. “This is another pathetic attempt to smear people close to President Trump and distract from the administration’s many successes.”

The president also addressed an allegation that former National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn Gary David CohnGary Cohn: 'I haven't made up my mind' on vote for president in November Kushner says 'Alice in Wonderland' describes Trump presidency: Woodward book Former national economic council director: I agree with 50 percent of House Democrats' HEROES Act MORE removed papers from his desk to prevent him from withdrawing from a trade deal with South Korea, saying "there was nobody taking anything from me.”

Woodward also reports in his book that Trump called Attorney General Jeff Sessions Jefferson (Jeff) Beauregard SessionsGOP set to release controversial Biden report Trump's policies on refugees are as simple as ABCs Ocasio-Cortez, Velázquez call for convention to decide Puerto Rico status MORE “mentally retarded;” wanted to assassinate Syrian President Bashar Assad; and that Defense Secretary James Mattis James Norman MattisBiden courts veterans amid fallout from Trump military controversies Trump says he wanted to take out Syria's Assad but Mattis opposed it Gary Cohn: 'I haven't made up my mind' on vote for president in November MORE said Trump acted like a “fifth- or sixth-grader” when discussing the Korean Peninsula.

The president's comments to The Daily Caller were published not long after White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders released her own statement regarding Woodward's book.

“This book is nothing more than fabricated stories, many by former disgruntled employees, told to make the President look bad. While it is not always pretty, and rare that the press actually covers it, President Trump has broken through the bureaucratic process to deliver unprecedented successes for the American people," Sanders said.

The Washington Post released an audio recording of a conversation between Trump and Woodward regarding the book in which the president said Woodward had always been fair.