On the NORAD Santa-tracker call from Mar-a-Lago the President tells an eight-year-old in Kansas that if Santa brings her coal, it will be 'clean, beautiful coal.'

Christmas Eve. Mar-a-Lago. The NORAD Santa Tracker phones, set up in the grand ballroom, on the live line with the operations center in Colorado. The President and the First Lady, taking calls from children. The cameras on. The tradition, going back to 1955.

The President took a call from an eight-year-old girl in Kansas. The girl, by the published transcript, told the President that she had been good this year and that she hoped Santa would not bring her coal. Hoped Santa would not bring her coal. That is the thing the eight-year-old said. Coal is bad, in the eight-year-old’s understanding. Santa puts coal in the stockings of the bad children.

The President, on the call, responded that if Santa did bring her coal, it would be clean, beautiful coal. That is the line. Clean, beautiful coal.

Hon. I want to take this slowly. The phrase clean, beautiful coal, in this administration’s policy vocabulary, is a rally line. It is a line the President has used at energy speeches, at coal-state rallies, at industry roundtables, in front of audiences of coal-mining adults who understand the framing. The line, in those settings, is part of the coal-good-renewables-bad policy frame. Fine. That is politics. That is what an energy speech is.

The line, on Christmas Eve, on a NORAD Santa Tracker call, with an eight-year-old in Kansas, is not an energy speech. The eight-year-old has no policy frame. The eight-year-old has Santa. In the eight-year-old’s frame, coal is the punishment Santa gives bad kids. The eight-year-old’s question was Santa.

The President, on the call, took the eight-year-old’s Santa frame and ran his coal frame through it. The First Lady, on the call, audibly on the recording, redirected by saying be good and Santa will bring you what you want. That is what the NORAD script says. That is the line. The line works. The line has worked since 1955.

I have been a waitress for thirty years. I have served plenty of Christmas Eves. I have poured coffee for kids of every age. I have, on Christmas Eve, not taken a kid’s Santa and redirected it into energy policy. That is the easiest table in the diner. You smile. You say Santa is on his way. You bring the kid a candy cane.

The eight-year-old, on the call, was gracious. The eight-year-old said thank you and hung up. The President went on to the next call. The next call was about cookies. The President answered the cookies question on cookies. The cookies got the cookie answer. The coal got the energy speech.

That ought to concern you, and it ought to concern Santa.