UPDATE: Trump's cabinet officially becomes a cabal of cowardly clowns.
A photo resurfaced of Marco Rubio wearing oversized shoes the day after a story broke that Trump is "scaring" his staff into wearing his favorite footwear. We wish we were making this up.
Yesterday, I published a piece about Donald Trump’s shoe fetish — specifically, his habit of buying his staff $145 Florsheim oxfords and expecting them to wear them in his presence. I noted, among other things, that Trump reportedly guesses his staffers’ shoe sizes before ordering them a pair. And you wouldn’t believe the photo evidence that’s emerged in the day since.
As I wrote yesterday morning:
“Wearing [Trump’s shoes] becomes a private act of submission — particularly if he’s guessed your size wrong, and you’re forced to walk around with clown shoes, or your toes curled up in the tips.”
I meant that as a joke.
I had no idea that within 24 hours, we’d have photo proof that it’s happening.
A picture has resurfaced from January showing Secretary of State Marco Rubio — the nation’s top diplomat, the man theoretically representing American credibility to the world — apparently wearing a pair of black oxfords that are noticeably, almost cartoonishly, too big for his feet. See above. He appeared to shuffle around in them on Capitol Hill like a child who snuck into the closet and donned daddy’s work clothes.
Clown shoes. Almost literally.
Now, we could stop here and let the image speak for itself. The jokes do write themselves. A grown man milling about the nation’s capital in his boss’s over-sized shoes is, objectively, one of the funnier things to happen in American diplomacy since Trump returned to office.
But I want to be serious for a moment, because this photo is not actually funny.
Yesterday I closed my piece with this:
“A man who can make the Vice President of the United States wear his shoes — JD Vance reportedly has four pairs — has already established something very important about the nature of power in his administration. So for the next few years, or however long we’re in this mess, I’d urge you to pay close attention to what people are wearing on their feet when they’re around the president. They’re telling you something.”
Marco Rubio is telling us something here.
He is telling us that he will wear a costume for the president of the United States. He will accept public humiliation rather than risk displeasing the man who demands his unflinching and continuous obedience. He’s making clear that his pride and his independent judgment are all available for purchase at $145 a pair.
To be honest with you, I used to be an admirer of Marco Rubio. I may not have agreed with him on everything, but I worked with him and his team on Capitol Hill on legislation to protect our country. And when he spoke in soaring tones about defending human rights and human liberty at home and abroad, I thought, “This is how American leaders should speak. This is how they should act.”
Now, he’s shown us definitively that he’s sacrificed all of those vaunted principles at the altar of Trumpism — in exchange for power, cheap footwear, and a shot at a better title.
Here’s why it matters beyond the punchline, my friends. A man who will dutifully dress up in over-sized, floppy shoes for the president (without a shred of visible remorse for the fire sale of his dignity) will probably also approve illegal airstrikes for the president against unarmed civilians… cut sickening backroom deals for the president to please our enemies… and facilitate foreign wars for the president without congressional authorization.
All of those things, by the way, have already happened on Rubio’s watch as America’s chief diplomat. So we aren’t speculating. This is just simple pattern recognition.
Almost overnight, the “Trump shoe” has become a symbol. Whether for Secretary of State Marco Rubio or the gaggle of White House officials reportedly marching around in the same stupid shoes, it signals that — at the highest level of American government — our public servants believe loyalty to one man matters more than their loyalty to the law, to the Constitution, or to the country they’re supposed to serve.
This is what cowardice looks like. Grown men in clown suits, surrendering their character to please a con man.
Yesterday’s full piece on Trump’s shoe fetish and its historical echoes is available here.
Your friend, in defiance,
Who knows maybe I’m wishing for something that may possibly never occur. Yet so looking forward to all of them wearing the same orange jumpsuit with shackles on their ankles shuffling down the halls in the same ill fitted slippers..
I am so disappointed in Rubio. But that’s not new. The day that donald and JD accosted, scolded and humiliated Pres Zelensky, I watched Rubio trying to sink back into the sofa and disappear from a situation that he KNEW was unwarranted and disgraceful. I’d have respected him if he resigned that day. But instead , he endorsed and repeated what he heard in the Oval Office. He has lost all credibility as a public servant and proponent of democracy. But he has shown the world that his allegiance is not to the constitution but to a selfish, self serving, lowlife man of low intelligence and limited ability when it comes to governing (or even thinking rationally). We are in deep trouble until the Republican Congress recovers their spines and removes donald from office. What other evidence do you need to see??