President Trump asked a child whether he still believed in Santa: ‘’Cause at 7, it’s marginal, right?’

WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump, a reality-show host in his past life, is an attention-generating machine.

Exhibit 394,627, by unofficial counts: the phone call he had with a 7-year-old named Coleman who had called in to a government program that purports to track Santa and is run by the North American Aerospace Defense Command. (Yes, the military has a program that helps children looking for Santa).

The president and first lady had invited members of the press into the White House State Dining Room around 6:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve as they fielded calls to NORAD that had been patched through to them. A fire roared behind them, and Christmas trees flanked the hearth.

It was the kind of scene favored by Trump: a grand setting, spiked by a dash of controversy.

So when Coleman called, perhaps the president was trying to push the envelope a bit.

"Hello, is this Coleman? Merry Christmas. How are you? How old are you?" Trump asked the boy. Reporters could not hear the child's responses.

"Are you still a believer in Santa Claus? 'Cause at 7, it's marginal, right?"

A short video of the exchange was published by the Daily Beast on Twitter around 8:30 p.m. and quickly began circulating, its way paved by Twitter's algorithm.

The video was a small illustration of the way in which Trump is the ultimate figure for the social media age, a showman with an uncanny ability to keep people watching, clicking, engaging.

Was Trump trying to dissuade the child from his innocent belief in Santa? Was he too blunt and cynical? Was he being refreshingly realistic? Maybe it was just a joke? The video is yours to debate, tweet, rebuke, endorse, share, should you choose to spend your holiday thinking about the president. And many did: By Christmas morning, the video had registered well over 7 million views, becoming the subject of jokes, wisecracks and mockery on social media.

Parents have debated for years about how much information to give or withhold from their children about figures such as the Tooth Fairy and Santa. Data from a study by University of Texas psychologist Jacqueline Woolley cited by the Atlantic in 2014 showed that 5 is the peak age for nurturing this kind of innocent belief: 82 percent of 5-year-olds believe in Santa, she found. By 7, that number is around 60 percent. By 9, it's down to about 30.

Trump played it more straight with the other children who called in.

"What's Santa going to get you for Christmas? Who's with you?" he asked one child. "Have a great Christmas, and I'll talk to you again, okay?"

More than 1,500 volunteers staff a call center in Colorado Springs to help answer children’s queries about Santa. The program dates to an error in 1955, when a Sears ad for children hoping to talk to Santa directed them to call a number that went straight to a secretive red phone at an Air Force colonel’s desk.