Four years ago, a Christmas Eve phone call with President Joe Biden turned into a memorable cultural moment when a caller used the phrase that would become a long-lasting political taunt, and the exchange exposed how the president, media and a viral chant intersected in a single clip.
It was a bumpy holiday moment that quickly escaped the cozy trappings of the NORAD Santa tracker and turned into political theater. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill were taking calls as the family tracked Santa, and what should have been a benign seasonal interaction turned sharp and public. The clip did more than embarrass a president; it helped launch a chant that stuck.
“Merry Christmas, and let’s go Brandon,” said the caller.
“Let’s go Brandon, I agree,” replied Biden.
The slogan itself traces back to a NASCAR podium at Talladega in 2021, when Brandon Brown won and a reporter heard a chant in the crowd. Fans were audibly chanting an expletive aimed at President Biden, and NBC’s Kelli Stavast suggested the crowd was saying “Let’s go Brandon” during her interview. That slip, whether innocent or deliberate, gave conservatives a clean, repeatable slogan to mock the administration and the media’s spin.
Watching the president repeat that line on a holiday call played straight into a narrative many on the right already held: that the mainstream media walks back public anger and that the president is either out of touch or easily led. Plenty of people laughed, and plenty more used the moment as shorthand for broader complaints about governance, competence and how the press covers the president. The exchange became less about a holiday interaction and more about a wider disconnect.
The scene offered a compact lesson in how modern political moments are made: part optics, part live audio, and part rapid repetition on social platforms. A two-line exchange cut through polished messaging and made for endless memes, talk radio fodder and late-night clips. It also showed how a single flub or an ambiguous comment can be amplified into a cultural symbol that outlives the original context.
Critics on the left tried to downplay it as harmless banter or a quick holiday quip, but conservatives pointed to it as evidence of the president’s frailty and the press’s willingness to sanitize reality. The phrase gave critics a way to rally that was unmistakable and repeatable, and it quickly spread beyond the stadium and into everyday political language. For many on the right, that was the point: the chant replaced nuance with blunt truth.
The fallout for those involved was quiet but telling. The NBC reporter who tried to translate the chant for viewers was later removed from prominent on-air assignments, a move some saw as accountability and others viewed as a simple programming decision. Regardless, the moment left a mark on careers and on how people viewed live coverage and on-air interpretation, especially when tensions run high.
Four Christmases later, the clip still circulates because it captured something raw — a holiday backdrop, a live microphone and a candid response that amplified public sentiment. It wasn’t a policy debate or a measured speech; it was a tiny, unscripted slice of interaction that turned into a political wedge. And for many conservatives, it’s a reminder that offhand moments can carry more weight than planned statements, especially when the media tries to reshape what is plainly heard.
