"This is not ideal timing with everything going on": Internet reacts as Trump calls 8-year-old's voice "beautiful and cute" during NORAD Santa tracker calls

Donald and Melania Trump spoke with children on Christmas Eve via the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) Santa Tracker hotline.

The President and the First Lady answered calls from kids all around the country from the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and one clip went viral on social media.

One 8-year-old girl from North Carolina spoke with Trump and asked how he was doing. The President said that she sounded "beautiful and cute," and asked her age. As the girl replied, he noted that she was "so smart."

Trump: I am fine. You sound beautiful and cute. How old are you?

Caller: I am eight pic.twitter.com/fm3rGty3xl

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 24, 2025

The girl asked whether Santa Claus would get upset if she forgot to leave him some cookies. Donald Trump asked her to repeat the question and said Santa would be disappointed, but he won't be "mad."

The short clip went viral after netizens claimed the remark was reportedly inappropriate. Notably, the Epstein files were released this month. However, the heavily redacted files faced backlash as people speculated that the President allegedly removed incriminating details about himself.

"This is not ideal timing with everything going on…" they wrote.

X users claimed that the "beautiful and cute" comment to a child, allegedly made the President seem "creepy." They called out Donald Trump, saying that he is supposedly not even trying to hide his "unsettling" nature.

"He's so creepy, and he's not even trying to hide that the files they're trying to hide to protect him is proof of how insanely unsettling he is," one netizen wrote.

"He's not hiding it anymore because he knows he can get away with it," another X user noted.

"After reading the unredacted Epstein Files, this sounds a bit creepy. He describes an eight-year-old girl as beautiful and cute?" another user added.

However, some netizens claimed that the remark was innocent, something a grandfather would say to his granddaughter. The X users stated that people who called Trump "creepy" were seemingly sexualizing a normal conversation.

"Calling a child beautiful cute and smart is not some kind of gotcha in a normal conversation like this. Get a life," one netizen stated.

"Normal conversation from someone who is a grandfather. Not normal if you are someone who sexualizes children yourself," another internet user wrote.

"I feel like half the people in these comments either dont have a dad, or definitely didnt have a grandpa. yall never had your grandpa talk to you?" one netizen added.

Donald Trump said that he had to make sure "bad Santa" was not "infiltrating" the US

A 10-year-old from Oklahoma asked the President how they were able to put a tracker on Santa. Trump replied that they put a tracker to make sure it was not "bad Santa" who was "infiltrating" the US.

"Santa's a very good person. 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," he stated.

He told the child that they found out Santa was "good" and there was no need to worry, as Santa loved children and Oklahoma. Donald Trump also noted that he loved Oklahoma as the state was "very good" to him in the presidential election.

Stay tuned for more updates on the President.