The cellphone rings. Would your 10-year-old like to talk with the president? He’s monitoring Santa Claus from his front room in Palm Beach.
“Santa is a very good person,” President Donald Trump, in a swimsuit 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?”
Okay, Jasper says.
Next one, normal.
Trump is talking to youngsters whose calls to NORAD to trace Santa have been patched by way of to Mar-a-Lago. It’s a presidential custom.
“I figure you should hear all of this,” he tells his viewers of reporters, who’re watching from beside the Venetian silk panels and Romanesque columns at Trump’s gilded Florida resort. His speakerphone is on, however his spouse’s is not.
“She’s very focused. The first lady’s very focused,” he mentioned, peering round the Christmas tree to the place Melania Trump is sitting, receiver to ear.
She doesn’t lookup.
“I think it’s best if they go to sleep,” the first girl says into her receiver, together with her again 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 subsequent.
“You sound so beautiful and cute! You sound so smart,” the president tells Savannah, who is questioning: “Will Santa ever get mad if we don’t leave him out any cookies?”
“He won’t get mad,” Trump replies, after asking Savannah to repeat her query. “But I think he’ll be very disappointed. You know, Santa, he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. You know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side.”
Another look over to the first girl, engrossed in dialog.
“This way you can hear what’s going on. I think it’s a little bit better,” he says, pointing to his speakerphone. “One-sided calls are never good, but they’re less much less dangerous.”
The army is monitoring Santa over Sweden, the normal informs Trump.
“So Santa’s got quite a trip to get to your part of the world,” he tells Amelia in Kansas. “Five hours from now, Santa will be coming down your chimney.”
Amelia is apprehensive about coal in her stocking.
“You mean clean, beautiful coal?” Trump asks. “I had to do that, I’m sorry.”
Next one, normal. The line is quiet.
“You like the room everybody? No ceiling height problem,” the president says to fill the silence, glancing up towards the gold-leaf coffering. “Hey general?”
A five-year-old in Pennsylvania is standing by.
“Pennsylvania is great. We won Pennsylvania actually, three times, but we won Pennsylvania. We won it in a landslide. So I love Pennsylvania,” Trump declares.
Santa is now above Copenhagen.
“Could do this all day long,” the president proclaims. “We have to get back to China, Russia, Ukraine. We have to get back to other things, but this, you could do this all day long. Okay, general, we’re ready.”
Melania Trump has hung up her cellphone.
“How are you doing, first lady?” the president asks from throughout the room.
“I’m waiting for a phone call,” she replies.