President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to sue The New York Times and CNN for publishing articles about a preliminary intelligence report that said the American attack on Iran had set back the country’s nuclear program by only a few months.

In a letter to the Times, a personal lawyer for the president said the newspaper’s article had damaged Trump’s reputation and demanded that the news organization “retract and apologize for” the piece, which the letter described as “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic.”

The Times, in a response Thursday, rejected Trump’s demands, noting that Trump administration officials had subsequently confirmed the existence of the report, issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency, and its findings. “No retraction is needed,” the paper’s lawyer, David McCraw, wrote in a letter. “No apology will be forthcoming,” he added. “We told the truth to the best of our ability. We will continue to do so.”

A spokesperson for CNN, which was the first outlet to report elements of the preliminary report, confirmed that the network had responded to a similar legal threat.

Trump and his allies have sharply criticized the Times and CNN in recent days for publishing articles about the preliminary intelligence report, whose conclusions ran counter to the president’s assertion that the American attack had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program.

The legal threat against the Times and CNN marked another escalation in Trump’s ongoing effort to demonize and delegitimize the independent news media.