WASHINGTON — New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger accused President Donald Trump of using government power and legal threats to intimidate journalists, declaring that no modern president has been more hostile to the press. Sulzberger made the comments Friday in an editorial marking the newspaper’s 175th anniversary. He wrote that Trump has accused journalists of treason, sued news organizations over coverage and directed federal agencies to investigate, subpoena and prosecute reporters. The publisher also criticized the president’s description of the news media as “the enemy of the people,” a phrase Trump has repeatedly used against critical coverage. Sulzberger acknowledged that previous presidents, including John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, also fought with Times journalists. But he said Trump’s approach was unprecedented in the modern era. The White House rejected that characterization. Spokesperson Allison Schuster said Trump gives reporters frequent access and answers questions nearly every day while working to serve the public. The dispute comes amid a series of confrontations between Trump and the Times. Trump filed a $15 billion lawsuit against the newspaper in September 2025, claiming it acted as a partisan outlet because it endorsed Kamala Harris in the 2024 presidential election. A judge dismissed the case soon afterward. In May, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the Times over its hiring practices. The commission’s sole Democratic member said the case appeared driven by the administration’s political agenda. Sulzberger has also criticized news organizations that have changed editorial policies or settled lawsuits to avoid drawing the administration’s attention. In his anniversary editorial, he argued that such pressure can lead media companies to retreat from aggressive reporting and weaken the public’s ability to hold powerful officials accountable. He identified artificial intelligence as a second major threat to the country’s news ecosystem. News organizations are already struggling after the collapse of the advertising model that once financed much of their reporting, Sulzberger wrote. AI companies, he said, are taking journalism produced at significant expense and repackaging it on a massive scale without adequately supporting the institutions that create it. The warning followed the release of documents in a Times lawsuit against OpenAI. The materials included internal Microsoft discussions in which engineers expressed concern that news articles were being taken from publishers without permission. Sulzberger said the combined pressure from political retaliation, financial instability and AI-driven extraction has made the future of an independent press increasingly uncertain. For communities that rely on local and national reporting to scrutinize public officials, the stakes extend beyond the media industry: fewer durable newsrooms can mean less verified information and less accountability in government.