As expected, Donald Trump did not take kindly to the author of a new biography of Queen Elizabeth II reporting that the late monarch called him “very rude” behind his back and wondered whether his marriage to Melania Trump was part of “an arrangement.”

But instead of just hitting back at the reporting in the new book, Trump seemed to be trying to start an argument with the queen — who died two years ago, according to the Daily Beast’s royal reporter Tom Sykes.

Trump gave an interview to the Daily Mail after his campaign rally in North Carolina Wednesday. Trump, who is running for president for the third time, disputed the queen’s reported impressions of him to the Daily Mail, which this week serialized portions of the book, “A Voyage Around the Queen.”

“I had a great relationship with the queen,” Trump told the Daily Mail. As president, he met Elizabeth II twice on visits to the U.K., in 2018 and 2019. But Trump also made the probably unverifiable claim that they “spoke often,” and said his own sources close to the queen told him, “She said to friends of mine that, ‘President Trump was my favorite president.’”

In the interview, Trump ostensibly was firing back at “sleazebag” author Craig Brown, a veteran journalist and member of British high society who wrote the new book.

“It was totally false,” Trump said about the book. “I have no idea who the writer is, but it was really just the opposite. … She liked me and I liked her.”

But as Trump continued his exchange with the Daily Mail, he appeared “to come dangerously close to picking a fight with the ghost of Elizabeth,” Sykes wrote. “Incredibly,” Sykes continued, the 45th president implied that they were in regular contact and that they “spent hours together” when he was her guest at a state dinner at Buckingham Palace in 2019. “She was a fantastic woman,” Trump said.

It’s not surprising that Trump would be sensitive about this topic, given that the former Manhattan real estate mogul expressed much admiration for the queen before and after she died. He also spent much of his adult life trying to claim various associations with the British royal family that may not exist.

Trump can say what he wants to about being the queen’s “favorite president” or say that they enjoyed regular contact — she is not around to dispute this kind of assertion. Even in her lifetime, the queen wasn’t likely to have responded to such claims, even if she wanted to, under her “never complain never explain” ethos.

In addition, she was known to be very discreet and careful about not revealing anything about her interactions with her prime ministers and with other world leaders, so as to protect delicate political and diplomatic relationships.

Every once in a while, something has leaked out about how she supposedly viewed certain people. For example, Elizabeth reportedly thought that Tony Blair carried himself with “a certain hauteur.” Brown’s book also cites her interaction with a British politician, David Blankett, which led to the impression that she thought Vladimir Putin was a threatening figure.

In his book, Brown said the queen made the comments about Trump being “very rude” to a friend over lunch a few weeks after one of his two visits.

The queen told the friend she was especially put off by the way the former reality TV star couldn’t stop looking over her shoulder, as if he was in search of others he might find more interesting, Brown wrote.

Known as an astute judge of character, Elizabeth also wondered about his marriage to Melania Trump, a Slovenian former model who is his third wife, Brown reported. The queen first met Melania Trump when she accompanied her husband to tea at Windsor Castle in 2018.

“She also believed President Trump ‘must have some sort of arrangement’ with his wife Melania, or else why would she have remained married to him?” Brown said about the former first lady, who is 24 years younger than her husband.

Since the serialization of Brown’s book, some royal observers have expressed disbelief that the queen would reveal such thoughts about Trump, even to someone close to her. According to the Daily Beast, former household member Jack Stooks told GB News: “We know that in her reign, she never put a foot wrong. It’s not something she would do. It’s just ridiculous.”

That may be true, but Sykes also explained why Trump’s claim to be “the queen’s favorite president” seems to be “very unlikely.” It’s important to remember that Elizabeth had dealings with 14 U.S. presidents during her 70-year reign, and met 13 of them in person. While she was careful to never express a preference in public, she also extended gestures that suggested that she felt more personally comfortable with some than with others.

The queen invited President Dwight D. Eisenhower to stay at her beloved Scottish retreat, Balmoral, and she stayed in Eisenhower’s private White House quarters when visiting America, Sykes reported. It’s also been said that she bonded personally with President Ronald Reagan over a shared love of horses, and she invited President Barack Obama invited to visit her for her 90th birthday.

As for her true feeling about Trump? Brown has his sources, and Trump has his claims about a close bond. “I think it’s a shame that a sleazebag can write an article that’s totally false,” Trump told the Daily Mail.