The New York Times on Monday denounced "intimidation tactics" by President Donald Trump against its reporters after days in which the administration assailed the newspaper's reporting on Elon Musk and the Defense Department.

The newspaper said in a post on X -- the platform owned by Musk -- that Trump's approach has "never caused us to back down from our mission of holding powerful people to account, regardless of which party is in office." Baker, Haberman and their colleagues "have an unrivaled record of covering this and prior administrations fully and fairly," the Times said.

It was responding to Trump's Sunday night Truth Social post that specifically criticized the Times' Maggie Haberman, whose name was misspelled by the president as "Hagerman," and Peter Baker, along with Baker's wife, New Yorker writer Susan Glasser.

"There's something really wrong with these people, and their SICK, DERANGED EDITORS," Trump wrote. "They did everything in their power to help rig the Election against me. How did that work out???"

Trump has been known to publicly attack news organizations or specific journalists; not all of them choose to respond and engage.

Explaining its decision to defend its reporters, the Times said people shouldn't lose sight of Trump and his administration's real goal as they intensify their efforts to crack down on the free press, spokesman Charles Stadtlander said.

"The administration wants to make it more difficult for reporters to bring to light important information that the president would rather stay secret," he said. "And they want to undermine public confidence in journalists who ask difficult questions and publish uncomfortable truths."

In criticizing Baker, Trump said he has written "many of the long and boring Fake News hit pieces against me."

Haberman was among five bylines on a story released late Thursday that said the billionaire Musk was to receive a briefing on the military's top-secret plans if a war broke out with China. The newspaper said it would represent a potential conflict of interest for Musk, who is helping the administration in government cost-cutting moves and has financial interests in China.

The Defense Department furiously denounced the story, calling the Times "a propaganda machine that should immediately retract their lies."

The newspaper stood by its story and later reported that the meeting was called off after the Times reported it was about to happen. While Trump also said it was a "fake story," he made clear that Musk should not be given access to the information.

Haberman is the author of the 2022 book "Confidence Man: The Making of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America."

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David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder and https://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social