Overview
- President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania spent about 20 minutes taking children’s calls from Mar-a-Lago before placing calls to U.S. service members.
- In one exchange, Trump said the U.S. tracks Santa to ensure “we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa,” telling Oklahoma children that “Santa is good.”
- He defended coal as “clean and beautiful,” joked about Santa’s cookie appetite, and praised a child seeking a Kindle as a “high-IQ person.”
- The president tied some banter to election politics, praising supportive states and inaccurately claiming he won Pennsylvania “three times,” a statement contradicted by reporters.
- NORAD’s Tracks Santa operation marked its 70th year with a fully web-based call center, Twilio and Amazon Connect support, interpreter services, and roughly 400,000 expected calls managed by about 1,000 volunteers.