AG Sulzberger was reporting a meeting with Mr Trump at the White House.
The meeting was intended to be off-the-record but Mr Sulzberger said Mr Trump broke this with a tweet on Sunday.
In his tweet, the president said he had had a "very good and very interesting" meeting with Mr Sulzberger.
"Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!" the tweet read.
He did not refer to his own repeated use of the phrase.
The New York Times released its statement after Mr Trump tweeted, saying it had decided to "respond to the president's characterisation of their conversation".
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Mr Sulzberger said he had accepted the meeting with Mr Trump to raise concerns about the president's "deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric".
Had a very good and interesting meeting at the White House with A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher of the New York Times. Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, “Enemy of the People.” Sad!— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2018
He said he told Mr Trump that the phrase "fake news" was "untrue and harmful" but said he was "far more concerned about his labelling journalists 'the enemy of the people'".
"I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence," he said.
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Mr Sulzberger said he had told the president that this was particularly true in other countries, where he said Mr Trump's rhetoric was being used by some regimes to crack down on journalists.
"I warned that it was putting lives at risk, that it was undermining the democratic ideals of our nation, and that it was eroding one of our country's greatest exports: a commitment to free speech and a free press," he said.
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