screenshot via YouTube
Collman Lloyd is the 7-year-old girl who was on the phone with President Trump on Christmas Eve when he said that believing in Santa at the age of seven was “marginal.”
Lloyd, a 7-year-old girl from Lexington, South Carolina, contacted the North American Aerospace Defense Command (also known as NORAD), which has tracked Santa’s Christmas Eve movements for 63 years.
As part of a holiday tradition, the President and the First Lady spoke with some of the young children over the phone, providing updates on Santa’s whereabouts through the NORAD Tracks Santa system.
When Collman Lloyd called in, the NORAD scientist who answered the phone asked Lloyd if she would like to speak with President Donald Trump.
What happened next quickly went viral.
“Are you still a believer in Santa?” President Trump asked the young Collman.
“Yes, sir,” she politely replied.
“Because at 7, that’s marginal, right?” President Trump then questioned her.
Lloyd, who had never heard the word “marginal” before, replied the only way she knew how: “Yes, sir,” she said.
Lloyd never did learn Santa’s whereabouts, but she was glad to be able to talk with her nation’s leader.
“I was like, ‘wow.’ I was shocked,” she said. “It wasn’t really (nerve-wracking), I just had to think of what the truth was.”
After the president hung up the phone, Lloyd sat in her kitchen with her parents, her 10-year-old sister, her 5-year-old brother and a friend. She wondered about Trump’s family, and what his Christmas Eve plans were.
If she ever had the chance to talk to the president again, Lloyd said, she’d ask him about his family.
“Most people know this question. I would like to ask if he has any kids,” she said. “I’ve honestly never heard of them or seen any of them so I was wondering.”
Luckily, despite the “marginal” question from President Trump, Collman says that she still believes in Santa, who gave her the American Girl doll that she asked for this year.