Dan Rather asks Trump what’s more ‘marginal’: ‘Believing in Santa at age 7 or not believing in climate change at age 72?’

Former longtime CBS News anchor Dan Rather on Tuesday knocked President Trump after the president’s Christmas Eve phone call with a 7-year-old went viral due to Trump asking a 7-year-old girl if she believed in Santa Claus.

Rather used Trump’s language from the call in which the president asked if it was “marginal” for a 7-yeard-old to believe in Santa.

{mosads}Following Trump’s line of questioning, Rather hit the president over his stance on climate change, questioning which was more “marginal:” The belief in Santa Claus after the age of 7, or not believing in man-made climate change and its effects on the world.

“Just a thought: Which should be considered more ‘marginal’ – believing in Santa at age 7 or not believing in climate change at age 72?” Rather tweeted.

Just a thought: Which should be considered more “marginal” – believing in Santa at age 7 or not believing in climate change at age 72?

— Dan Rather (@DanRather) December 25, 2018

Lawmakers, media figures and social media users took to Twitter to react to Trump’s comments. The girl, Collman Lloyd from South Carolina, said she left out milk and cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve and woke up to find an American Girl doll under the tree on Christmas morning.

Trump made headlines in November when he rejected a report detailing the effects of climate change drafted by scientists in his own administration, pointing instead to America’s air and water, which the president referred to as at a “record clean.”

“One of the problems that a lot of people like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers,” Trump said of climate change at the time. “You look at our air and our water and it’s right now at a record clean.”

“As to whether or not it’s man-made and whether or not the effects that you’re talking about are there, I don’t see it — not nearly like it is,” he added.

Rather is a frequent critic of Trump and has faulted the president for his treatment of the press, which Rather has called “straight out of Orwell,” referring to the novel “1984.”

“[George] Orwell, what he wrote, it’s practically a shooting script for Donald Trump,” Rather said earlier this year on CNN. “There is a method to this, and the method is to convince people that the only truth is the truth that comes from me, the ultimate power.”