How does a modern male politician stay in President Trump’s inner circle? By trading in dignity for some ill-fitting dress shoes, it seems.
As reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, President Donald Trump has a penchant for doling out $145 Florsheim Oxfords to cabinet members and closest allies. (The president likes to pair his own with bespoke Brioni suits.) Apparently, at a meeting in December, Trump told Secretary of State Rubio and Vice President J.D. Vance that they “have shitty shoes.” He then consulted a catalog, asked for their sizes—Rubio’s is 11.5, Vance’s is 13, as the latter will tell anyone casually—and allegedly remarked: “You can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.”
Confirming the story, Vance said that they’d each gone on to receive four pairs of shoes. But as several photographs have since shown, Rubio’s are at least two sizes too big for him.
One photo from January shows Rubio hugging Chuck Schumer. Leaning forward to begin their embrace, Rubio must be right up to the toebox, leaving a wedge of air at his heel. Another picture, from the World Economic Forum in Davos the same month, shows Rubio, again in his oversized Florsheims, flanked by White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and U.S. Ambassador to Switzerland and Liechtenstein Callista Gingrich (the ladies in black ballet flats and low heels, respectively), as well as U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent (flaunting his own Florsheims) and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer (peculiarly, in a pair of Dr. Martens). When meeting the visiting Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun at The State Department in February, the gap at the back of Rubio’s heel seemed even more cavernous.
