The caricature of Donald Trump has become so familiar that it’s surprising to see him in the flesh and realize that, oh yes, there really is a living, breathing person named Donald Trump. The concept of Trump seems to have long ago – many billions of dollars and dozens of glassy towers and blonde wives ago – broken free from the flesh and blood to exist as a platonic ideal of Trumpness. The name has become so synonymous with wealth, brilliant deal-making, bold risk-taking, massive overleveraging, conspicuous consumption, reality show theatrics – “You’re fired!” – that you forget that somewhere in all the brassy brand of Trump is the man Trump.

Yet here Trump is, seated before a northfacing window in a corner office on a high floor of the Trump Tower, New York’s Central Park resplendent in vivid summer greens and olives behind Trump, and framed magazine covers of Trump arrayed on the wall beside Trump. From all the hours of television, Trump’s features and accoutrements have become so familiar – the yellow power ties, the dark suits, the diamond cufflinks, the onion loaf of hair – that by now it all seems like costume instead of business suit and the man himself seems like a cartoon character come to life, as if Bugs Bunny or SpongeBob had humanized and was now ready to take your questions.

He leans forward, behind his immense maple desk, vast as a ping-pong table, strewn with brochures of new projects, deal memos, and letters from the famous and notorious. “Look at this,” he shows me, “You see this? This is off the record.” It is a letter written by a » next