Really American | Wednesday Evening, March 11, 2026
Stephen Colbert roasted the president last night over a Wall Street Journal report that Trump has been buying $145 discount Florsheim shoes for his entire inner circle — and that people are too afraid not to wear them. According to White House sources quoted in the Journal, it isn’t just cabinet secretaries. Interns. Interns are apparently wearing the shoes. The Secretary of State was photographed this week shuffling through official duties in a pair at least two sizes too big. Colbert called it what it is: a cult.
Meanwhile, oil is at $82 a barrel and rising. Tankers are burning in the Persian Gulf. The Strait of Hormuz is effectively closed. And the man in charge flew to Kentucky today to tell a rally crowd he already won the war — then said he has to “finish the job.”
On the way out of the White House this morning, a reporter asked him about the military’s own preliminary findings — that a U.S. Tomahawk missile killed 175 children at a girls’ school in southern Iran because American commanders were using intelligence data from 2013. His response: “I don’t know about it.”
He knew about it two days ago. He blamed Iran for it. Now he doesn’t know about it.
Here’s what else happened today.
“We Won.” But the Children in Minab Are Still Dead.
According to The New York Times, a U.S. military investigation has determined that American forces are responsible for the Tomahawk missile strike that killed at least 175 people — most of them schoolgirls between the ages of 7 and 12 — at the Shajareh Tayyebeh elementary school in Minab on the opening day of this war. The Times reports that U.S. Central Command generated the target coordinates using outdated intelligence data from the Defense Intelligence Agency. According to CNN, satellite images from 2013 showed the school was once part of an adjacent IRGC naval base. By 2016, a fence had been erected, three public entrances opened, a soccer field painted on the asphalt, and the walls decorated in blue and pink. To anyone who had looked, it was clearly a school.
The DIA never updated the target data. The school was coded as a military facility. And so a Tomahawk missile struck a building full of children.
Reuters reports that the strike may have involved multiple impacts — witnesses and local officials told investigators the school was hit three times. According to reporting by Reuters, one medic told investigators that after the first strike, the school principal moved surviving students to a prayer room and called parents. A second strike hit that room. A parent received a call from the school saying his daughter had survived the first explosion. He couldn’t get there in time. She was killed in the second.
Human Rights Watch has called for war crimes prosecutions, noting that the Trump administration had already eliminated civilian protection protocols before the war started — including removing civilian environment teams and red teams from the operational chain of command, and terminating senior military lawyers. According to HRW, the question is not just whether the strike was a mistake. The question is whether, given that the administration had stripped away every mechanism designed to catch mistakes like this one, anyone responsible should have known the school was there.
Trump’s response today, when asked whether he accepted responsibility as commander in chief: “That is — what? What did you —? For what?” Then he left.
Earlier this week, he told reporters Iran was responsible. He claimed, incorrectly, that Iran has Tomahawk missiles. Eight independent munitions experts confirmed to The Washington Post that the missile was American.
The children in Minab still have not been officially acknowledged by the White House.
He Said “We Won.” He Also Said He Has to “Finish the Job.” Both Were in the Same Speech.
According to ABC News, Trump traveled to Hebron, Kentucky today and told a crowd of supporters the Iran war is effectively over. “We’ve won. Let me tell you, we’ve won. You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. In the first hour it was over.” He then added: “We don’t want to leave early, do we? We’ve got to finish the job.”
Those two sentences were spoken in the same speech. They were not separated by any acknowledgment of the contradiction.
According to AP, this is part of a pattern that has now stretched across 12 days. Trump has, at various points, called the war a “short-term excursion,” said it was “pretty much complete,” declared “we’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough,” threatened “death, fire and fury” against Iran for blocking oil shipments, and told an Axios interviewer there is “practically nothing left” to bomb. Meanwhile, according to Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, quoted in the Times of Israel, “the operation will continue without any time limit, as long as required.”
Senator Mark Kelly told reporters: “They didn’t have a plan. They have no timeline. And because of that, they have no exit strategy.”
That’s not a partisan attack. That’s the factual description of what the last 12 days look like from the outside — and from the inside. According to AP, Hegseth told reporters Tuesday that it’s up to Trump “whether it’s the beginning, the middle or the end” of the war. The man running the U.S. military told the press he doesn’t know what phase of the war they’re in.
The Tankers Are Burning. The IEA Just Made an Emergency Move.
According to CNN, Iraq’s ports authority confirmed Wednesday that 38 crew members were rescued after two foreign oil tankers were set ablaze in Iraqi territorial waters in a suspected Iranian attack. A separate video geolocated by CNN appeared to show an Iranian drone striking a fuel storage tank at the Port of Salalah in Oman. According to the UK’s maritime monitoring agency, at least three additional vessels were struck near the Strait of Hormuz Wednesday.
Iran has effectively closed the strait, through which roughly one-fifth of the world’s oil supply passes.
In response, the International Energy Agency announced Wednesday it would release a record 400 million barrels of crude oil from member country reserves. According to NBC News, the United States will contribute 172 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve starting next week. The move failed to bring prices down. This is the same reserve Trump spent years criticizing Biden for tapping. He is now tapping it during a war he started.
Meanwhile, according to CNN, Russia is providing Iran with specific tactical advice on drone attacks — not just general intelligence sharing, but operational guidance on how to hit American and Gulf nation targets. At the same time, Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev is in Florida meeting with Trump administration officials. Russia is advising the country we’re at war with, and its top diplomatic fixer is in Palm Beach.
The war has now cost the U.S. at least $11.3 billion in its first six days, according to a Pentagon briefing to Senate appropriators reported by NBC News. Senator Chris Coons told reporters he believes the actual total is already “significantly above” that figure.
The Shoe Story Is Funny Until You Think About What It Means
According to The Wall Street Journal, Trump has developed a habit of interrupting meetings to critique his aides’ footwear, then ordering them $145 Florsheim Oxford shoes they are subsequently too afraid not to wear. According to White House officials quoted in the Journal, “It’s hysterical because everybody’s afraid not to wear them.” The shoes have reportedly gone to Vance, Rubio, Hegseth, Lutnick, Duffy, Sean Hannity, Lindsey Graham, and Tucker Carlson, among others.
This week, photos surfaced of Secretary of State Marco Rubio wearing a pair that appeared to be at least two sizes too large — shuffling through official duties in what the internet quickly dubbed clown shoes. According to JD Vance, the whole thing started when Trump interrupted a December Oval Office meeting to tell Rubio and Vance they had “shitty shoes,” then produced a catalog and ordered replacements on the spot. Vance recalled Trump leaning back in his chair and saying, “You know you can tell a lot about a man by his shoe size.”
Stephen Colbert noted on The Late Show that there’s a word for a leader who selects clothing for his disciples. He called it a cult. He’s not wrong to ask the question.
The man who cannot tell Congress how long his unauthorized war will last opens Cabinet meetings by asking whether everyone is wearing the shoes he bought them. And they are. Because they’re afraid not to.
Gavin Newsom Just Revealed Trump and Melania Sleep in Separate Beds — Even on Air Force One
According to The Daily Beast, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s new memoir recounts a 2018 Air Force One tour during which Trump walked him to the presidential bedroom. Newsom writes that he could see “a room with two beds, separated by more than a few feet.” According to Newsom, Trump did not wait for him to fill in the blank. “Melania wanted one bed,” Trump told him. “But two beds, you know, two beds next to each other.” Newsom wrote that Trump “seemed to be winking.”
We’re mentioning it because it’s a Wednesday and the world is on fire, and sometimes the smaller, stranger stories are the ones that actually tell you something true about the people running the country.
The Bottom Line Tonight
The U.S. military’s own investigation says American forces killed 175 children with a Tomahawk missile because the target data hadn’t been updated since 2013. The president said today he didn’t know about it. He knew about it Monday. He blamed Iran for it Monday. Tonight he flew home from Kentucky after telling a rally he already won a war that his own Defense Secretary can’t describe as being at the beginning, the middle, or the end.
According to AP, Trump has justified this war using at least four different rationales over 12 days. According to Al Jazeera, Iran says it won’t negotiate until the bombing stops and American guarantees are in writing. According to CNN, Russia is helping Iran fight us while its envoy has dinner in Florida.
And Rubio is walking around in shoes that don’t fit because he’s too afraid to tell the president they’re the wrong size.
That’s the state of the country tonight. Independent media is the only place where all of it lands in the same sentence.
