President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump participated in NORAD’s annual Santa-tracking tradition. They took calls from enthusiastic children who were keen about Santa’s Christmas Eve journey. Amid the fun, one small moment between the couple quickly went viral, and for all the wrong reasons.
Trump praised Melania during the calls. He referred to her as a “great first lady” and “elegant.” But the moment went super awkward after Melania glanced at him and asked, “Anybody else? Are they calling?”
The calls were part of NORAD’s long-running holiday tradition. The North American Aerospace Defense Command, a joint U.S.-Canada military operation, normally scans the skies for threats. On Christmas Eve, it switches gears to track Santa’s sleigh as it circles the globe.
On Christmas Eve, both @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and @FLOTUS @MELANIATRUMP answered calls from children and their parents to @NoradSanta‘s phone hotline. They were seated in the living room at Mar-A-Lago. Here is the audio of those calls. pic.twitter.com/eeDgd6S2QH
— Eben Brown (FOX) 🇺🇸 (@FoxEbenBrown) December 25, 2025
Trump, however, used several of the conversations to weave in politics. While speaking to one child, he said, “Pennsylvania is great, we won Pennsylvania, actually, three times. We won it a landslide.”
In another call, Trump went for the familiar rhetoric. “We track Santa. We want to make sure that Santa is being good. We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa. Santa loves Oklahoma like I do. You know, Oklahoma was very good to me in the election.”
His remarks drew huge reactions online. People on X criticized his tone of the conversations. One wrote, “Dude can’t just have a normal Christmas message.”
One more comment read, “How nice of him to interject himself into Christmas Eve. Let’s see what tomorrow’s Christmas message is like.” Another user noted, “Who doesn’t use the word ‘infiltrating’ when talking about Santa?”
🚨⚡️ Trump’s wife, Melania, with clear signs of annoyance while Trump speaks during the Christmas calls… pic.twitter.com/x7QaQ5fJhN
— RussiaNews 🇷🇺 (@mog_russEN) December 25, 2025
On the other hand, NORAD continued its holiday mission as usual, reports the Irish Star. Santa begins his famous trip from the North Pole, where he lives with Mrs. Claus and the elves who build toys and care for his reindeer throughout the year.
NORAD explained the detailed process. “Each year on December 24th, Santa and his reindeer launch from the North Pole very early in the morning for their famous trip around the world. The minute they launch, NORAD starts to track him!”
Santa’s first stop is the Republic of Kiribati. It is a group of islands in the South Pacific. He then moves west to deliver gifts across New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Asia, Africa, Western Europe, Canada, the United States, Mexico, and Central and South America.
This isn’t the first time Trump and Melania have taken part in the tradition. The couple also answered NORAD calls in 2018, when Trump made headlines for asking a seven-year-old about Santa, saying, “At seven, it’s marginal right?”
