There's no reason you can't make a statement through what you wear to a presidential address to a joint session of Congress. The female Democrats in Congress, for example, showed up wearing white on Tuesday night to commemorate the suffragettes, or early 20th century women's rights and voting advocates, and to make a fashionable stand for women's rights under President Trump. Other lawmakers wore blue ribbons to support the ACLU. It's not clear what statement Wilbur Ross, Trump's brand new commerce secretary, was trying to make with his choice of footwear, but a good guess would be "I'm a 79-year-old billionaire and I don't care what you think," mixed with a dash of professional pride.
These weren't just any off-the-shelf black slippers, though. As The Huffington Post's Christina Wilkie notes, they have the Commerce Department logo emblazoned on the top — pretty impressive, given that he wasn't confirmed until Monday night — and they appear to be quite costly:
Slippers aren't necessarily inappropriate footwear for a speech that ended after 10 p.m., it should be noted, especially if you've been eligible for Medicare for 14 years.