President Trump hit back at a news report that he was mulling yanking former President Barack Obama’s security clearance and suggested that onetime director of national intelligence James Clapper is “being nice” to him so he can keep his clearance.

“Fake News, of which there is soooo much (this time the very tired New Yorker) falsely reported that I was going to take the extraordinary step of denying Intelligence Briefings to President Obama. Never discussed or thought of!,” the president wrote on Tuesday.

In another tweet, Trump continued to address the controversy over his pulling former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance and said Clapper agreed with him.

“Even James Clapper has admonished John Brennan for having gone totally off the rails. Maybe Clapper is being nice to me so he doesn’t lose his Security Clearance for lying to Congress!,” Trump posted.

Asked about Brennan’s frequent criticism of the president, including calling his behavior at the Helsinki summit last month with Russian President Vladimir Putin “treasonous,” Clapper admitted on CNN that “John and his rhetoric have become an issue in and of itself.”

“I think John is subtle like a freight train, and he’s going to say what’s on his mind,” Clapper said on “State of the Union” Sunday.

He went on to say Brennan and other national security figures are speaking up out of “genuine concern” about “threats to our institutions and values.”

The New Yorker article said that in March 2017, Trump supporters in the White House believed former Obama administration officials were a threat to the president and pushed for revoking their security clearances.

But then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster took steps to halt the effort.

Still, others in the White House continued to lobby for Trump to deny Obama’s access to intelligence briefings, a practice available to all former commanders-in-chief.

Once again, McMaster intervened.

The White House announced last Wednesday that it took action against Brennan because he made a “series of unfounded and outrageous allegations — wild outbursts on the internet and television — about this administration.”

The Trump administration also said it was reviewing the clearances of a group of former and current national security officials.