Melania Trump attacks Donald's 'attention-seeking' first wife

These are unusual times in the White House

First Lady Melania Trump has issued a scathing response to her husband’s first wife, after she appeared on television to promote a memoir and jokingly claimed she was a “first lady”.

Ivana Trump, 68, a model and businesswoman who was married to the President from 1977 to 1992, appeared on a morning television show to promote a memoir, Raising Trump. During her appearance she jokingly said: “I have the direct number to White House, but I no really want to call him there because Melania is there. I don’t want to cause any kind of jealousy or something like that because I”m basically first Trump wife.”

But one person who apparently did not appreciate the joke was Melania Trump, Mr Trump’s third wife and the current First Lady. Her spokeswoman, Stephanie Grisham, said in a statement that she was “honoured by her role as First Lady of the United States”.

“She plans to use her title and role to help children, not sell books,” she added. “There is clearly no substance to this statement from an ex, unfortunately only attention seeking and self-serving noise.”

Ivana Trump, the mother of Ivanka, was appearing on ABC to promote her book, which details her raising of the President’s three eldest children. She said she spoke with her ex-husband every 14 days.

“Sometimes I tell him not to speak that much,” she said, saying that she supported his use of Twitter as it enabled him to speak to his supporters directly.

During their divorce, Ivana Trump accused the President of “raping” her three years previously. But she has since clarified it was not in “a literal or criminal sense”.

The claim, which Mr Trump denied, was contained within a deposition and first reported in the 1993 book Lost Tycoon: The Many Lives of Donald J Trump, by Harry Hurt III.

When Lost Tycoon was to be printed in 1993, Mr Trump and his lawyers provided a statement from Ms Trump, published beneath the allegation of rape.

“During a deposition given by me in connection with my matrimonial case, I stated that my husband had raped me.

“I wish to say that on one occasion during 1989, Mr Trump and I had marital relations in which he behaved very differently toward me than he had during our marriage.

“As a woman, I felt violated, as the love and tenderness which he normally exhibited toward me, was absent. I referred to this as a ‘rape’, but I do not want my words to be interpreted in a literal or criminal sense.”

Ivana Trump divorced the President when it was revealed he was having an affair with his future second wife, Marla Maples. Donald and Melania Trump have been married since 2005.