President Donald J. Trump and Attorney General William Barr depart after delivering remarks on citizenship and the census in the Rose Garden at the White House on Thursday, July 11th, 2019 in Washington, DC.

President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed a report from The Washington Post that said he had asked Attorney General William Barr to hold a news conference defending his controversial call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The president, through his subordinates, indirectly asked Barr to publicly declare that Trump had broken no laws in the July 25 call, The Washington Post reported Wednesday night, citing people familiar with the matter. That phone call is now at the center of the House impeachment probe into Trump's efforts to get Ukraine to announce investigations into the Bidens and the 2016 presidential election.

The Post reports that Barr decided not to hold the presser. Trump tweeted Thursday morning that "Bill Barr did not decline my request to talk about Ukraine" — disputing Barr's reported refusal while appearing to acknowledge that he did ask the attorney general to discuss Ukraine publicly.

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But in a follow-up, Trump seemed to broaden his denial. "The degenerate Washington Post MADE UP the story about me asking Bill Barr to hold a news conference. Never happened, and there were no sources!" Trump tweeted.

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Trump continued to rail against the story as the day wore on. In another tweet, he revived his nickname for the Post — linking it to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who owns the paper — and called out each of the three reporters by name.

"A garbage newspaper!" he tweeted.

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White House spokesman Hogan Gidley said that Trump "has nothing but respect for AG Barr and greatly appreciates the work he's done on behalf of the country — and no amount of shady sources with clear intent to divide, smear, and slander will change that."