On repeatedly describing Trump as a "short-fingered vulgarian"
Carter: Well, we'd come up with these epithets, and there was a certain writer we called a "bosomy dirty book writer." ... It was just the repetition that made them stick a bit back in the day.
Andersen: And we had tried other epithets. We tried "Queens-born casino operator."
Carter: Yeah, yeah, yeah --
Andersen: A couple of others, but it was --
Carter: It was the juvenileness of the "short-fingered vulgarian."
Marco Rubio Defends His 'Small Hands' Criticism Of Donald Trump
Andersen: Yes. The short-fingered vulgarian: The combination of smart — "vulgarian" — and "short-fingered," just a stupid, ad hominem physical description.
On Trump's reaction
Carter: [Trump] blames me for this more than Kurt. He'll send me pictures, tear sheets from magazines, and he did it as recently as [last] April. With a gold Sharpie, he'll circle his fingers and in his handwriting say, "See, not so short." And this April when he sent me one, I just — I should have held on to the thing, but I sent it right back by messenger with a note, a card stapled to the top, saying, "Actually, quite short." And I know it just gives him absolute fits. And now that it's become sort of part of the whole campaign rhetoric, I'm sure he wants to just kill me — with those little hands.