Gavin Newsom seized on the president’s newly exposed obsession with discount dress shoes to take a swipe at the president’s chronically swollen ankles.
Trump is said to be so enamored with a pair of $145 Oxfords, produced by Chicago-based brand Florsheim, that he’s bought pairs for his inner circle and expects them to lace up in a bizarre show of unity.
People are “afraid not to wear them,” a White House official joked to The Wall Street Journal on Monday.
Among the obedient, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was spotted with a pair of Florsheim shoes on Capitol Hill in January—but they appeared ill-fitting, with a wide gap visible at the back of his right heel.
Newsom, 58, gleefully used the photo to rib Trump, 79, over his swollen ankles.
“Maybe Trump just assumes everyone else has swollen ankles,” the governor’s press office wrote on X.
The aging president has been plagued by cankles for months. His swollen ankles are frequently photographed bulging over the tops of his favorite black dress shoes, which appear uncomfortably tight.
Trump’s swelling is particularly noticeable in photos that show other people’s ankles, with Rubio’s lower limbs often looking stick-thin in comparison to Trump’s.
The oldest person to assume the presidency, Trump suffers from chronic venous insufficiency, a condition common in seniors where leg veins struggle to push blood back up to the heart.
The president told the Journal in January that he briefly wore compression socks to help treat the condition, but stopped after a while because he “didn’t like them.”
Even as his cankles test the limits of his Florsheims, the Journal reported that Trump is so taken with the shoes that he has a stack of them in the White House, according to one insider.
Trump has also reportedly begun guessing people’s shoe sizes to their faces. If this goes wrong, it could potentially be dangerous, menswear writer Derek Guy told the Journal.
“If you have a suit that doesn’t fit well, you’ll just look bad. But if you have a shoe that doesn’t fit well, you can develop physical issues,” he said.
Despite the president’s obsession with Florsheims, also Michael Jackson’s favorite shoe brand, its parent company, Weyco Group, is suing the Trump administration over the president’s tariffs.
Weyco asked the U.S. Court of International Trade in December to declare the measures “illegal” and requested a $16 million refund, with interest, on the fees it has already paid. The Supreme Court struck down Trump’s tariffs in February. Weyco’s CEO Thomas Florsheim welcomed the move as “an important step forward.”
When reached for comment, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle told the Daily Beast, “President Trump is the sharpest, most accessible, and energetic president in modern American history. The only thing swollen is Gavin Newscum’s stupidity that’s destroying California.”
