President Donald Trump recently sat for an hour-long interview with four New York Times reporters, in which the president weighed in on many subjects, from immigration to Venezuela to the economy.
The Associated Press, this week, wrote about a live blog the reporters composed about the interview, and they shared some somewhat surprising details about what Trump had told them.
“As the president interacted with his aides and advisers during our time with him, he referred to several of them as ‘kids,’” Katie Rogers, one of the reporters, said in the live blog. “This included two of the most powerful figures in the federal government: Vice President JD Vance, 41, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who is 54.”
The president of the United States buys multiple pairs of shoes for his “kids”: pic.twitter.com/sKYqmiEh5Z
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) January 8, 2026
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It’s not the rarest thing for an older man to refer to people much younger than him as “kids,” even if they’re middle-aged.
Vance and Rubio, meanwhile, “showed off their shoes,” revealing that the president had purchased them. Both the vice president and the secretary of state said they had received four pairs of shoes each from Trump.
It was the same interview in which Trump revealed that he doesn’t consider himself bound by international law, and the only limits on his powers are his own morality.
“Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me,” the president told the Times. “I don’t need international law,” he added. “I’m not looking to hurt people.”
There were some shocked reactions online to the president calling his top underlings “kids.”
During the NYT interview, President Trump referred to some of his aides as “kids” including Vance, 41, and Rubio, 54. Apparently he bought them shoes. At some point Vance lifted up his leg to show the President the pair he was wearing. pic.twitter.com/cnOV8YD1S1
— Hümeyra Pamuk (@humeyra_pamuk) January 8, 2026
Trump is in his late 70’s, Vance and Rubio are 41 & 54, respectively.
Of course they’re “kids” to him. How old are his own children? https://t.co/p1lr99Nh7h
— Chinomso Uzoeto (@chinomsouzoeto) January 9, 2026
Trump showed himself a complainer (he gets no respect), a host (he summoned a valet bearing a tray of waters & Diet Cokes), a grudge-holder (Joe Biden’s name came up many times) and a father figure to his aides and staff referring to JD Vance and Marco Rubio, as “kids.”
— Gruntwarrior 🇺🇸 USMC 🇦🇫🇻🇳🇮🇶🇺🇦 (@CaptCavCoVan) January 9, 2026
Photo courtesy of the Political Tribune media library.
