US President Donald Trump marked Christmas Eve by quizzing children who called in about which presents they were excited to receive, while promising not to let a “bad Santa” infiltrate the country and suggesting that a stocking full of coal may not be so bad.
Vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president and First Lady Melania Trump participated in the tradition of talking to youngsters dialling into the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), which playfully tracks Santa's progress around the globe on Christmas Eve each year.
“We want to make sure that Santa is being good. Santa’s a very good person," Trump said while speaking to kids ages 4 and 10 in Oklahoma. “We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.”
Trump, who was in a jovial mood while talking with the kids, said at one point that he “could do this all day long” but would likely have to return to more pressing matters, such as efforts to quell the fighting in Russia’s all-out war with Ukraine.
When an 8-year-old from North Carolina asked if Santa would be mad if no one left cookies out for him, Trump said he did not think so, but added, “But I think he’ll be very disappointed.”
“You know, Santa’s — he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. You know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side,” Trump joked. “I think Santa would like some cookies.”
Asked by an 8-year-old girl in Kansas what she'd like Santa to bring, the answer came back, “Uh, not coal.”
“You mean clean, beautiful coal?" Trump replied, evoking a favoured campaign slogan he has long used when promising to revive domestic coal production.
“I had to do that, I’m sorry,” the president added, laughing and even causing the first lady, who was on a separate call, to turn toward him and grin.
“Coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that, at all costs,” Trump said. “But you don’t want clean, beautiful coal, right?”
“No,” the caller responded, saying she'd prefer a Barbie doll, clothes and candy.
Trump has often marked Christmases past with criticisms of his political opponents, including in 2024, when he posted, “Merry Christmas to the radical left lunatics.”
Shortly after wrapping up Wednesday's Christmas Eve calls, he returned to that theme, posting: “Merry Christmas to all, including the radical left scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.”
"What we (have in the US) is a record stock market and 401Ks, lowest crime numbers in decades, no Inflation, and yesterday, a 4.3 GDP, two points better than expected," he added.
"Tariffs have given us trillions of dollars in growth and prosperity, and the strongest national security we have ever had. We are respected again, perhaps like never before. God bless America," Trump concluded.