The phone rings. Would your 10-year-old like to speak with the president? He’s tracking Santa Claus from his living room in Palm Beach.
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“Santa is a very good person,” President Donald Trump, in a suit and gold tie, tells Jasper in Tulsa. “We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa. So we found out that Santa is good. Santa loves you. Santa loves Oklahoma, like I do. You know Oklahoma was very good to me in the election. So I love Oklahoma. Don’t ever leave Oklahoma, okay?”
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Okay, Jasper says.

Next one, general.


Trump is speaking to children whose calls to NORAD to track Santa have been patched through to Mar-a-Lago. It’s a presidential tradition.
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“I figure you should hear all of this,” he tells his audience of reporters, who are watching from beside the Venetian silk panels and Romanesque columns at Trump’s gilded Florida resort. His speakerphone is on, but his wife’s is not.

“She’s very focused. The first lady’s very focused,” he said, peering around the Christmas tree to where Melania Trump is sitting, receiver to ear.

She doesn’t look up.


“I think it’s best if they go to sleep,” the first lady says into her receiver, with her back to the president. “And then Santa will arrive to your house.”

“She’s able to focus totally without listening to this,” the president says. “At least you know what’s happening.”

An 8-year-old in North Carolina is next.

“You sound so beautiful and cute! You sound so smart,” the president tells Savannah, who is wondering: “Will Santa ever get mad if we don’t leave him out any cookies?”