I Bought Trump’s Favorite Pair Of Shoes. They May Be The Key To His Success.

This article is part of Upstream, The Daily Wire’s new home for culture and lifestyle. Real human insight and human stories — from our featured writers to you.

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The worst part of a new pair of shoes is breaking them in. You basically know you’ll end up with blisters on the back of your feet. It’s going to be great when you get home from work, if you ever do, and flip those bad boys off. Maybe the next time they’ll be comfortable — if you ever muster the will to throw them back on. Let’s face it, these days sneakers can even be considered business casual. Stylish dress shoes just aren’t worth it.

That is, unless you take the advice of President Donald Trump. The man turns 80 in just over two months, and he’s still working what sometimes feels like endless days. I assure you, none of it is in sneakers. He never got the memo about them qualifying as business casual, and if he did, he would have used a Truth Social post to fire whoever wrote it.

A lot of people wonder: How does he do it? It’s gotta be the shoes.

Thanks to some shoe-leather reporting from the Wall Street Journal, Trump’s secret was revealed. It’s a $145 shoe from Florsheim. 

Nope, the New York billionaire isn’t sporting $1,090 Guccis. He’s rocking a Wisconsin-based shoe brand founded in 1892. And he loves its shoes so much he insists the top men around him are wearing them too. 

At a December meeting with two men who may both be president one day, JD Vance and Marco Rubio, Trump leaned over the desk to alert them both that they had disappointed him.

“Marco, JD, you guys have sh*tty shoes,” Trump said before asking their size and outfitting them with Florsheims. He’s reportedly taken to doing it with many men around him, including the wealthy Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. 

If it’s good enough for the Cabinet, it’s probably good enough for me. But specifically, what shoe is it? 

A visit to the Florsheim website found that nearly all the dress shoes are $145. Trump says you should wear a black shoe. I recently heard Michael Knowles order a Daily Wire employee to do the same. And I know from the Kingsmen you wear Oxfords, not brogues; a man doesn’t need an adorned shoe.

So I imagine Trump is outfitting his team with the same black plain-toed Oxford I selected. It came in the mail last week, and let me tell you something: I skipped right past the worst part of a new pair of shoes. On day one, I felt like I’d broken in the leather for years.

I put them on at 7:45 in the morning when I laced them up to leave the house, and found them still on my feet after I got all three of my kids to sleep just after 8:00 at night. I’d like to say they were so comfortable I forgot I was wearing them, but that would be a lie. I couldn’t stop thinking about how good my feet felt. And, just like Trump, I couldn’t stop pushing them on my coworkers. I made two men in my office touch the inside of my shoe; at least one made a purchase on the spot. The next morning, he told me he dreamed about the shoes.

Once you take them off for inspection, it becomes quite clear what’s going on. The inner lining of the shoe is partially lined with a thick, soft padding. Apparently, it’s a proprietary Florsheim material called Suedetec, which is strategically placed inside the shoe to navigate the usual pitfalls of a new shoe.

The certainty that there is no break-in period prompted me to pull the trigger on one of the hardest-to-break-in men’s clothing items: a pair of loafers (still $145) for black-tie occasions.

Most people looking for comfort end up wearing Crocs or Uggs. But in Florsheims, you can dress for comfort and still look like a president. Don’t want to look presidential? Fine, how about imitating the greatest pop star of all time (before he lost his mind)? Yes, that’s right. They’re the same shoes Michael Jackson did his moonwalk in.

#FlorsheimFriday: Did you know that Michael Jackson taught himself to dance wearing our shoes and sported them for the rest of his career? pic.twitter.com/GWBOb9N2dL

— Florsheim Shoes (@FlorsheimShoes) June 16, 2017

Still not your cup of tea? How about wearing the same shoes as the greatest heroes in American history? Perfect, because Florsheim was the principal manufacturer of shoes for the U.S. military in both World War I and II. The company, founded by a Jewish German immigrant in Chicago, had a promotion that for every pair of shoes it sold, it gave a pair to the military. 

In my first official product review, I’m happy to put my stamp of approval on the official shoe of the Oval Office.