Washington: Fielding a phone call from a seven-year-old on Monday, US President Donald Trump put himself on Santa Claus's naughty list by raising doubts about his existence.
The call to American defense agency Norad, which “tracks” Santa's movements around the world, was one of several answered by Trump and his wife Melania as part of a Christmas Eve tradition.
It began innocuously enough: “Hello, is this Coleman? Merry Christmas. How are you? How old are you?”But Trump then ventured into dangerous waters, asking: “Are you still a believer in Santa Claus? ‘Cuz at seven it’s marginal, right?” The president’s question was not well-received on social media.
The Santa tracker presented by the North American Aerospace Defense Command dates to 1955, when a Colorado newspaper advertisement misprinted a phone number to connect children with Santa and mistakenly directed them to the military nerve center hotline.
To avoid disappointing the children, Norad’s director of operations at the time, Col. Harry Shoup, ordered his staff to check where Santa might be and update the children on his location.
