Melania Trump slams Ivana for calling herself first lady

Ivana Trump, at left, said she was the First Lady. The office of Melania Trump, at right, says there is "no substance" to her comment. (AP)

First lady Melania Trump's office fired back at President Trump's ex-wife Ivana on Monday after she boasted of her access to the White House and even referred to herself as the real "first lady."

In an interview with “Good Morning America” to promote her new book “Raising Trump,” Ivana Trump said she and the president speak “about once every 14 days.”

“I have the direct number to White House, but I [don't] really want to call him there because Melania is there,” she said. “I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I’m basically first Trump wife.”

She added with a laugh: “I’m first lady, okay?”

But Melania Trump’s office said there “is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex.”

“This is unfortunately only attention-seeking and self-serving noise,” the first lady’s communications director, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement to Fox News.

“Mrs. Trump has made the White House a home for Barron and the President. She loves living in Washington, D.C. and is honored by her role as First Lady of the United States,” Grisham said, slamming Ivana’s book-promotion. “She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books.”

In the interview, Ivana went on to share some of the advice she apparently shares with her ex-husband:

“Sometimes I tell him to just not to speak that much, okay?”

When asked about the president’s tweeting habits, and how she would feel if her children -- Ivanka, Eric and Donald Trump Jr. -- used that “language” to describe people, she noted that they were always “very good” and that she never needed to discipline them.

When asked how she would feel if they used the word “loser” to describe someone, she said, “I think they sometimes call people losers. If they are losers, they are losers, okay?”