Ivana Trump doesn’t want Donald Trump to run for president again in 2020.
“I’ll tell you something, I don’t think it’s necessary,” she told The Post during an interview Wednesday at her Upper East Side townhouse.
“He has a good life and he has everything. Donald is going to be 74, 73 for the next [election] and maybe he should just go and play golf and enjoy his fortune,” the president’s ex-wife said.
Besides, she added, “I think he probably [misses] a little bit of freedom, I don’t think he probably knew how much is involved of being the president. It’s so [much] information — you have to know the whole world.”
Despite having divorced Donald in 1992 after he infamously cheated on her with Marla Maples, Ivana and “The Donald,” as she affectionately calls him, have remained close.
“We speak every month,” said the 69-year-old whose book “Raising Trump,” is out in paperback May 1.
In fact, it was Ivana — the mother of Donald’s children Donald Jr., 40; Ivanka, 36; and Eric, 34 — who called the president in March to inform him that Donald Jr.’s wife, Vanessa, was filing for divorce.
“Of course, he was not happy,” said Ivana.
She, too, is “very sad” about the split, but thinks her son will be fine. “Donald Jr. is a good-looking guy. He is successful. He is not going to have a problem to find a girl,” she said. “Maybe Vanessa might have a little problem because she has five kids . . . who is going to date and marry the woman who has five children? Especially since she is young [40] and she might want to have more.”
Her son’s impending divorce hits close to home for Ivana, as Donald Jr. is rumored to have had an affair with former “Celebrity Apprentice” contestant Aubrey O’Day, whom he met while appearing on his father’s reality show.
“It’s always distressing, because I’ve been there,” said Ivana of the cheating allegations. “But who am I to judge and who knows what was the situation at that moment?
“It’s a long time ago now, so I think Vanessa knew it all along and maybe she just couldn’t get over the hurt to forgive him. But I honestly don’t know that many men who can keep their zippers up.”
Ivana’s sympathy for put-upon women extends to First Lady Melania Trump, in light of lawyer Michael Cohen’s admission that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 to keep silent about her alleged affair with POTUS. Daniels claims the first time she and Donald had sex was in 2006, months after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron.
“I feel bad for [Melania] because I know how bad I did feel. It hurts a lot,” said Ivana.
“I divorced Donald immediately [after I discovered the Maples affair] because I told myself, ‘Am I going to live with the person [who] is going to say, ‘I’m going to go and play golf’ [leaving me to] think, ‘Is he really going to go and play golf?’ I cannot do it.
“I have pride and I have dignity and stuff like that, but so many women, around the world, they live with the men knowing that they are cheating and stuff like that. Everybody handles their situation their own way.”
Ivana admits that she never suspected Donald of infidelity during their 15-year marriage.
“Donald was always in the office and coming home, so I had no idea how he had the time to cheat,” she said. “I [found out from Post columnist] Cindy Adams. She saw me at a black-tie dinner and she said, ‘Do you know that Donald has an affair?’ And I just looked at her and turned on my heel. I didn’t speak to her for years.”
Ivana, however, does not have sympathy for Daniels: “She is not playing a fair game.” She added dismissively that Daniels is “paid to strip. . . She goes pole dancing or whatever she’s doing.”
The stress of being first lady and dealing with such public humiliation on a globally-scrutinized platform is not something Ivana longs for.
“Honestly, I prefer that she’s in [the White House rather than me],” she said of Melania. “I like to do what I want to do and like to go wherever I want to go with whomever I want to go.”
Melania, on the other hand, is a virtual prisoner according to Ivana.
“It’s a hard adjustment because she cannot go anywhere. She cannot go shopping, she cannot go out to the theater, she cannot go to restaurants because she has Secret Service and 15 cars in front and 15 in back. So she’s sort of a little bit stuck in the White House — and Donald is busy from morning to night and he’s a workaholic — so I’m not sure how much you really can do.”
One thing Melania isn’t doing is racking up magazine covers. According to a recent story in The Post, she has only graced the cover of one glossy — Vanity Fair Mexico — since becoming FLOTUS.
Ivana blames not just left-leaning media, but also Melania’s reticence.
“I don’t think it’s her fault,” she said. “I think she would do it in a minute if she would be asked. But . . . she doesn’t speak a lot and the magazines [want to interview someone who talks]. You can speak to me for hours and I talk. Some people are more quiet.”
Ivana also worries about her daughter Ivanka, who works as assistant to the president, losing her agency in the White House. In fact, she wishes Ivanka would give up any DC political aspirations and focus on her own companies, including her fashion lines.
“I would prefer if she would [move back to] New York. Politics is a very dirty business,” she said. “In [fashion], she would be her own boss.”
Ivana herself has eschewed politics. She told The Post in September that she had turned down the ambassadorship to the Czech Republic after Donald offered it to her.
She thinks that the president can hold his own in the political arena.
“He doesn’t take nonsense from anybody and he prefers to be friends [rather] than be enemies with Putin, or basically any leader around the world,” she said, adding, “I think [Russian president Vladimir] Putin is the toughest guy in the world. Really.
“It’s always better to be politically correct and be friendly,” she continued. “But Donald’s not going to take his crap, that’s for sure.”
These days, Ivana spends her time traveling between Miami, NYC and her home in the South of France.
“I’m not dating,” said Ivana, who has been divorced four times. “I have companions. They’re based all around the world.”
She still visits Mar-a-Lago, Donald’s opulent estate-turned-private-club in Palm Beach, Fla. “I play tennis and go to the spa and go for dinners with my friends there, but [only] during the week. On the weekends, everybody goes there and everybody wants a photograph with Donald and people go, ‘Ivana! My mother loves you, can I take a picture with you?’ ”
Besides, she prefers the action of Miami to Palm Beach.
“I don’t really say a single woman should go [to Palm Beach] because the wives are very jealous and they grab their husbands. They think somebody is going to steal them,” she said. “So I got a little bit bored in Palm Beach.”
When Ivana isn’t jet-setting, she’s busy being “Ivana-ma” and “Glam-ma,” as her nine grandkids call her.
“Being grandmother, you have the kids for two hours, three hours or for half a day and then when you have headache, you just ship them back to the mama and she has to change the diaper,” said Ivana.
She’s hopeful that her youngest son Eric and his wife, Lara — who gave birth to baby Luke in September— will add to the brood again soon.
“I hope so, yes, because he loves kids,” Ivana said. “And Lara, I never thought she would have many children because she’s very slim and she runs in the marathons and things like that. It’s hard for the body. [But] she had the baby and she’s very happy, and I think they will have more.”
Hopefully, the grandchildren’s names will pass muster with Ivana.
“Somebody said, ‘Ivana, what did you think about [the] selection of the names for the grandkids?’ ” she said. “I’m not going to name which ones but some of them are just long and some of them are outdated, but again it’s [the parents’] child.” She added that Donald was originally against naming their first born son after himself.
“He said, ‘How about if he doesn’t turn out good?’ ” she recalled with a laugh.
Although Donald Jr., has been bad lately, Ivana isn’t about to reprimand her son.
“He knows with Vanessa he made a mistake so I would not punish him anymore. He has enough of the problem as it is and five kids to raise,” she said.
After her own split — complete with a reported $25 million settlement — from Donald, Ivana’s advice to her children when it comes to divorce is this: “Be fast, because it costs a lot of money.”
