Bill Maher eviscerated the president’s “weird” obsession with his Cabinet members’ feet.
The Real Time With Bill Maher host, 70, slammed the White House’s preoccupation with vanity during his monologue on Friday. After slamming Defense Secretary “Pentagon Pete” Hesgeth for worrying about his camera angles in the Oval Office, Maher went in on Trump’s bizarre habit of gifting people shoes.
“He looks at other men and guesses their shoe size, and then he sends them a pair,” Maher said. “The entire Cabinet is wearing shoes he got them, including Marco Rubio, where they didn’t fit, so he’s in clown shoes. I’m just saying, it’s a little weird for a man to look at other men and go, ‘What you got down there, a nine and a half?’”
The Daily Beast reached out to the White House for comment.
Maher’s mocking comes after the president escalated a feud between the pair last month. In a Truth Social post, Trump said that at a dinner the duo shared last month, Maher was “nervous” and a “lightweight.” On Maher’s show, he countered by saying, “You do things that are racist, misogynistic, anti-democratic, and corrupt.” Now, Maher’s taking aim at Trump’s aesthetic obsessions.
The president’s shoe fixation has raised eyebrows this week after the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump, 79, buys nearly all of the men in his orbit $145 Florsheim leather oxford shoes. The brand was also favored by Michael Jackson. Trump reportedly guesses the shoe sizes of his friends, Cabinet members, and lawmakers and sends them a box, often signed with a note. The gifts do not extend to the women in his administration.
“It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them,” one anonymous White House staffer told the Journal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has gotten repeated lashings over the shoes because the pair Trump gave him appears to be several sizes too big. Observers remarked that Rubio looked like he was wearing clown shoes during one January meeting.
“Marco Rubio clomping around in shoes two sizes too large that Trump bought for him is a perfect demonstration of the cult that is MAGA. Ridiculous,” one person said on X.
Vice President JD Vance has previously shared Trump’s insistence on buying his Cabinet shoes. He said the president dunked on their “s---ty shoes” and offered to buy them new ones.
“The president, he kind of leans back in his chair, and he says, ‘You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size,’” Vance recalled.
Trump responded to the report about his unique shoe habit, calling it false but immediately contradicting himself. He said he doesn’t like his Cabinet members wearing sneakers and will gift them an alternative.
“What I do is, as somebody that for many, many years has walked around in shoes that were no good—and, you know, would not be that comfortable—so I have fun with it,” he told Fox News’ Brian Kilmeade on Friday. “When they tell me they have a problem, I say, ‘Let me get you a pair of shoes.’ And seems to work out pretty well. Now they look all spiffy and nice.”
