PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump on Sunday morning ratcheted up a dispute with The Wall Street Journal, accusing the newspaper of purposely misquoting him as saying in an interview that he has a good relationship with the leader of North Korea.

In two tweets from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Fla., the president applied a familiar denigrating term — “fake news” — to a Journal report on Thursday that said Mr. Trump had boasted during an interview: “I probably have a very good relationship with Kim Jong-un. I have relationships with people. I think you people are surprised.”

Mr. Trump insisted that he had actually started his sentence with the contraction “I’d,” not “I,” which would change the meaning from a surprising boast of an existing relationship into a prediction that he could have a good relationship with the dictator if he wanted it.