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This is Recode Media with Peter Kafka.

That's me.

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I'm here with Kurt Anderson, the host of Studio 360, and the man who's done many other

amazing things in his life, including branding Donald Trump back in the 80s.

We didn't think of it as branding at the time. Look what you wrote.

But yes. You and Graydon Carter ran spy magazine, founded Spy Magazine. I know you've told the story

before, but I'm going to ask you again. Who decided and why did you decide to name Donald Trump

a short-fingered Bulgaria? Well, because he is. But Trump was actually in our very first issue.

The very first issue of Spine, October of 1986, the cover story was Jerks, the 10 most

embarrassing New Yorkers.

He nailed it.

And there he was, one of them, before he was even well known in New York, actually.

Anyway, we tried out very, we called him a Queensborn casino operator. We called him. We had all kinds of little... This was the spy style, right? Everyone got a... Not everyone, but the regular people got an epithet attached to them. Henry Kissinger, for instance, was socialite war criminal, Henry Kissinger. Which was always just... It was fun to see, you laugh, and it was fun

to repeat it every time he came up in the magazine.

Anyway, we tried out various ones on Trump, and none of them took, really, until I guess

1988, when we called him a short-fingered vulgarian.

...