'First Wives Club': Melania Trump Reacts After Ivana Trump Says She’s ‘First Lady’

WASHINGTON, DC — Call it the White House remake of “The First Wives Club” with a political twist. Promoting her new book, “Raising Trump,” President Donald Trump’s first wife, Ivana, said in a television interview Monday that she is “the first lady” because she married the businessman turned politician first. The first Mrs. Trump also said it must be awful for the third Mrs. Trump to have to live in the White House.

The tone of the interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America” didn’t sit well with the actual first lady of the United States, Melania Trump, whose communications director, Stephanie Grisham, fired back in a blistering statement.

“Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the president,” the statement read. “She loves living in Washington, D.C., and is honored by her role as first lady of the United States. She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books.”

Watch: Trump's first wife says she's the first lady, not Melania

Grisham added there is “clearly no substance to this statement from an ex” and dismissed 68-year-old Ivana Trump’s comments as “attention-seeking and self-serving noise.” (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch to receive daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

Ivana Trump, the mother of the president’s three oldest children, said during the program that she and her ex-husband speak about every two weeks and that she has a direct number to the White House.

“I [don’t] really want to call him there, because Melania is there,” she said. “And I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that, because I’m basically first Trump wife. OK? I’m first lady.”

The second Mrs. Trump, Marla Maples, whose affair with Trump ended Donald and Ivana Trump’s 15-year marriage, got a mention in the interview, too. Ivana Trump said she has forgiven her ex-husband for the indiscretion, but not Maples.

“I never accepted her apology,” Ivana Trump said. “She ruined my family and my marriage.”

On “CBS This Morning” Sunday, Ivana Trump said she gets along great with Melania Trump but gave Maples the brush-off. “One is nobody,” she said when asked about the president’s second and third wives. “And the other one is first lady.”

The story continued beyond the 24-hour news cycle when Ivana Trump said in a Fox News “Fox and Friends” interview that aired Tuesday that reports of friction between her and Melania Trump are overblown and that she considers Melania Trump like family. The interview had been recorded before Ivana Trump made her “first lady” remark.

She said she had tried to put reports of discord between the two to rest in a text message to the first lady. “I sent Melania the text, the last thing I would like to do is say something bad about, you know because you are family,” Ivana Trump told Fox. “And I don’t say anything bad or do anything bad to the family member.”

Photo of Ivana Trump by Cindy Ord/Getty Images For NYFW: The Shows/Getty Images Entertainment