Donald Trump said Monday during a Cabinet meeting that North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un prefers communicating with him to dealing with his predecessor, Barack Obama, claiming Obama tried unsuccessfully nearly a dozen times to get Kim to take his phone calls.

'I like him, he likes me. We get along. I respect him, he respects me,' the president said of the despot who he has met in person three times.

Trump said Obama had cautioned him during their transfer of power that North Korea's nuclear ambition was 'the biggest problem. I don't know how to solve it.'

'He told me he doesn't know how to solve it. I said, "Did you ever call him?" No,' Trump continued. 'Actually, he tried. Eleven times. But the man on the other side, the gentleman on the other side, did not take his call. Okay? Lack of respect. But he takes my call.'

Ben Rhodes, National Security Council spokesman under Obama, tweeted an hour later that 'Trump is a serial liar and not well,' and insisted the outreach Trump described 'never' happened.

President Donald Trump claimed Monday that his predecessor Barack Obama tried 11 times to get North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un on the phone, only to be rebuffed each time

Kim's nuclear ambition has turned his regime into a major problem for America's Asia-Pacific allies; Trump has met with him three times in a bid to play for time

Former President Barack Obama never met with Kim, but said during his 2007 presidential primary run that he would be willing to

The president has made a similar claim in the past, saying in June that Obama had wanted to meet Kim but his administration failed to arrange it.

'President Obama wanted to meet, and Chairman Kim would not meet him,' Trump said during a June joint press conference in Seoul with South Korean president Moon Jae-in.

'The Obama administration was begging for a meeting. They were begging for meetings constantly. And Chairman Kim would not meet with him.'

Obama's onetime director of national intelligence, James Clapper, laughed at the idea on CNN days later.

'In all the deliberations that I participated in on North Korea during the Obama administration, I can recall no instance whatever where President Obama ever indicated any interest whatsoever in meeting with Chairman Kim,' Clapper said then.

'I just – that's news to me,' he snickered.

Trump and Kim last met June 30 at the border village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone in South Korea

Ben Rhodes, a former spokesman for Obama's National Security Council, slapped down Trump's claim and called him 'a serial liar'

Former intelligence director James Clapper laughed in June Trump's suggestion that Obama 'begged' for a meeting with Kim

Former NBA player Dennis Rodman (right) has made multiple visits to North Korea and considered Kim a friend; he said in 2013 that the despot wanted contact with Obama

Susan Rice, an Obama-era national security adviser, tweeted: 'At the risk of stating the obvious, this is horse-sh*t.'

Obama did say in 2007 as he ran for the Democratic presidential nomination that 'I would' be willing to meet Kim 'without precondition.' There's no evidence, however, that such a meeting was ever contemplated after he took office in 2009.

Former NBA player Dennis Rodman, who built a friendship with Kim Jong Un, said in 2013 after meeting him that he wanted Obama to reach out.

'He wants Obama to do one thing: Call him,' Rodman told ABC News at the time. 'He said, "If you can, Dennis – I don’t want [to] do war. I don’t want to do war." He said that to me,' Rodman claimed.