President Trump is probably the type of person who feels that when a subordinate puts his foot in it, they have to be brought to heel. Walking a mile in Marco Rubio’s shoes, then, could be a difficult task.
Take his actual shoes, for example. In many respects they look a half-decent pair of black Oxfords, given to him by the commander-in-chief — except they are many sizes too big.
Both Rubio, the secretary of state, and JD Vance, the vice-president, received four pairs of new shoes by their boss, a gift that could be interpreted as a thinly veiled insult — especially as it came weeks after Trump criticised their “shitty” footwear.
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Vance, 41, and Rubio, 54, brandished their new black dress shoes during Trump’s wide-ranging interview with The New York Times in the Oval Office this week.
“At one point the pair showed off their shoes, which they said were purchased by the president,” the correspondent Katie Rogers wrote. At one moment, Vance “lifted his leg in the air to show the president the pair he was wearing”.
Trump referred to both as “kids” during the sitdown, along with other aides and advisers.
Trump referred to JD Vance and Marco Rubio as “kids”
KEN CEDENO/UPI/BLOOMBERG/GETTY IMAGES
Only a few weeks before, Vance revealed that Trump had paused a “really important” discussion with him and Rubio in the White House to castigate the pair for their “shitty” shoes.
“The president kind of holds up his hand and says, ‘No, no, no, hold on a second. There’s something much more important. Shoes’,” Vance told a party in December. “He peers over the Resolute desk and he says, ‘Marco, JD, you guys have shitty shoes. We gotta get you better shoes’.
“He goes out and grabs a catalogue. There happens to be another politician in the room. I won’t say who, and you’ll find out why in a second.”
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Vance recounted that Trump proceeded to make a crude joke.
“He says, ‘Marco, what’s your shoe size?’ And Marco’s apparently an 11 and a half. He says, ‘JD, what’s your shoe size?’ My shoe size is 13.
“And he asks this politician, who I won’t embarrass, what his shoe size is, and he says, seven. The president, he kind of leans back in his chair and says, ‘You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size’.”