How the White House Reads Every Letter it Gets
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- čas přidán 6. 05. 2023
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Video written by Ben Doyle
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Back in third grade, after reading Flat Stanley we each had to send a little Stanley cutout by mail to someone out of the city, asking them to carry him around for a week and take pictures with him. A kid in my class declared she was sending hers to President Obama, and I thought she was joking. But she did, and a few weeks later she got an envelope filled with pictures of Obama carrying her decorated Stanley around the White House, in the Oval Office, at meetings, with his family, etc. I thought that was really sweet that he'd do that for some random kid
Do you have them/have digital copies of them by any chance?
Whatever you think about his politics, Obama was a good person.
OMG this is so wholesome!
I dunno why but I imagine Obama bodyguards carrying papercut people to be the bodyguards of Stanley and everyone just giggling the whole week
@@PsRohrbaugh Except for when he was using drones to illegally kill American citizens in countries we weren't at war with, did nothing about the illegal mass surveillance perpetrated on citizens in the US (and did nothing when Clapper lied to congress about it), locked kids in cages, did nothing when Russia took Crimea... which led to today's Ukraine war, broke Syria and Libya, and supported the Yemen war that to date has killed hundreds of thousands of kids. Besides those minor hiccups he sounds like a really nice guy!
All those things happened 🤷
@@PsRohrbaugh Hes the only alive president I would shoot the shit with if theoretically possible
I wrote a letter to President Carter when he lost reelection and received a thank you for your support letter. It was a big deal to me being an 8 yr old and still have it framed.
Met him once as a kid he seems like a really nice guy
@Tpelzy the last decent human president
@@Broctis That implies there has been a decent nonhuman president since
@@TotalDrganMania but Hillary lost 2016 though
@@TotalDrganMania yeah, big fan of Rithplaysh. Good president, ever if he was from Zorglan 5
I actually sent an email to the White House because I was concerned over the chemicals in my town water and the dumping of waste in water near me. It took over a month, but I got a response that informed me of who I should contact for more information. I then did get a response from those folks! Very neat to see the process at work.
East Palestine, Ohio?
@@heidirabenau511 unfortunately this could be any number of small to medium size towns in the Midwest
@search engine Bot.
I wonder if they have giant, ever-changing reference books for this sort of thing, or if they just had to have a volunteer look online and come back to the writers with a list of contact info for relevant local government departments, state representatives, local EPA offices, chemical disposal facilities, and potential chemical dumpers in your area.
@@Anastas1786 it’s a mix of both. There’s a few experts who can be consulted for those matters, and they maintain the ever-evolving documentation
I like how this channel is just turning into “Sam tells Amy to go do something so Sam can talk about it”
If I had to guess, it's more like "Amy does things she thinks will be funny for a CZcams video, then writes a script for Sam, making him say he told her to do those things." Purely speculation, but I think the HAI writers have a pretty high degree of freedom for these videos
This one was written by Ben Doyle, however. Check the description.
So "Ben tells Amy to go do something so Sam can talk about it"
I think the White House reads all its letters by looking at the letter and reading.
Ye
I think so too, I could be wrong though
@@OpppLol-nm1fy no its not bot
I think your on to something here 🤔
i think they probably read word by word, like most people who graduated 2nd grade :D
The president of the United States will respond to you but your state rep and senator will just straight up ignore you
I sometimes get responses from my State Rep, but never my State Senator. If the issue I'm writing about is remotely newsworthy or controversial, I'll usually get a form letter, but if I'm writing about something very specific and/or obscure, I have gotten real responses on occasion.
Ive gotten replies by my state reps but they are way chiller people
I help a state senator with mail and can say that at least in my case the letters are all read either directly or conveyed directly. The downside though is the volume is typically immense, and there just isn't the infrastructure in place to speedily write accurate responses to everything: the senator I work with is working 14 hour days and writing responses during session for everything is typically unfeasible, and we don't want to send a message that would be an inaccurate representation of her stance. State reps usually have far less volume for whatever reason (my guess is people default to emailing senators instead) so they're typically able to read and respond faster in my experience.
I always have gotten a response from my state rep (though they're usually template / semi automated responses). Maybe your rep just sucks.
I assume the OP means his federal reps (Senate and House) as opposed to state reps who are extremely easy to connect with and meet with. Most people don't know the difference, unfortunately.
Fun fact, the President is empowered to stamp a letter by literally signing the envelope.
Actually, in a strange twist, the privilege of sending mail using one's signature instead of postage, known as the "franking privilege", extends to former presidents but not the sitting president. All members of congress receive the privilege though, so the sitting vice president (as president of the Senate) can frank a letter.
In the U.S., I think it's just current members of Congress, members-elect, the VP, former presidents, and spouses/widows of former presidents that get the privilege. It's not unlimited, though. They have a budgeted amount they can spend on postage each year.
@@morbo3000 I mean, I guess the president can just sign an executive order for that letter, if they wanted to do a power move.
@@blackfalcon1324 Given the risk of the opposing news media making a big deal out of it, they’d probably just stick to paying for it out of the designated budget.
If I had that power I'd abuse the heck out of it (except not really, since I don't have any pen pals).
It's a crime that the description doesn't actually list amy (or the actual writer ben) as assistant postmaster
I think Amy did actually write is as she is credited as the writer in the Nebula description.
That's the first thing I looked for. Amy's being robbed of her pay!
Commit to the bit, dammit!
Fun fact:there was 30 attempts to make a new white house logo and when the finally did it,It mostly just inverted the colors,so what was white became blue and what was blue became white
Wasn't aware the president now lives in The Blue House
@@timmccarthy9917 with Bear
Part of the consulting fees went towards taking officials to client dinners lol.
you should have sent that as a video suggestion
My sister in law worked in that office for years during 2nd Bush. They took it all quite seriously. Lots of institutional pride over their mission.
I'm glad to hear that. This is the kind of work that really means a lot to a democracy, and a republic.
I emailed Obama once to see if he had any words of encouragement for my friend while she went through radiation. I had heard that Presidents read 10 letters a day and my kid brain went “ok cool” and then stole my mom’s laptop. A year later, my family got a message on our landline’s answering machine from the Obamas’ office where they asked for me by first, middle, and last name and explained that the Obamas had personally read my letter and wanted to help me out. In the end, they sent my friend a personal note and some books to help her through her treatment, and I was banned from unsupervised computer access.
Even if this is just an Internet tale, I like it. Good on you kid ❤👍
1:45 Trump essentially got a free lawn mowing coupon in the mail and i dont blame him for cashing in on it
"that just makes me smart!" -employer of unpaid child labor
@@timmccarthy9917 the kid was asking for it ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ as a taxpayer i see this as an absolute win.
In 1993 kids sent earnings from bake sales to Clinton "to help reduce the federal deficit". Clinton took their money!
"Why would I charge the Tax Payer whatever the professionals charge, when little Timmy will do it for 20 bucks and AG Class Hours?"
Amy once again being the absolute MVP
But this time she's also the MWP---the Most Weird Person---for how she holds a pen.
She is not in the video description. :(
That is terrifying, I thought I saw it wrong and had to watch again... No, that IS how she is holding it 😱
@@Haskellerz I went to look too lol
“Your letter isn’t ticking” that one had me busting out laughing
I enjoyed that too XD
I sent a letter to President Carter when I was a child - yes dating myself, I know - and I did indeed get a reply and it was clear someone really read it. Not actually from the President, but still a reply.
When I was in kindergarten and going through a very strange president special interest phase, I sent a letter to Obama. Since my dad used to be a day trader, one of the things I complimented him on was his...anti great recession policies. Of course to me that was "good job of getting the stock market out of the toilet" with a drawing of a stock market line climbing out of a toilet. I hope the staffer got a good laugh from the unusual praise from a child.
In return I got a signed glossy photo of Obama, which hung in my room for the next several years.
LOL funny.
Just imagining such drawing is giving me laughter lol
Can you do a recreation of the drawing lmao
I wrote a letter to Bush when I was about 8, and absolutely flipped out when I got a letter back. Got a bunch of stickers off his dog Barney and showed it off to my whole fourth grade class.
Bush junior or Bush senior?
@@pieter-bashoogsteen2283 junior! George H.W. Bush. It was the year before Obama took office actually
@@megm7006 I would have personally found it cooler if it was senior, but that’s still an amazing story.
I love that for you! Stories like this are so important in humanising people we often see as larger than life. Even if I persoanlyy disagreeded with his politics, it really shows how much more we all have in common than we do diffartantly. Who wouldn't make stickers of their pets if they could, and then sending out to kids is just so cute.
@@crystalwolcott4744 460,000 Iraqis would beg to disagree
Looks like the HAI team got fooled by the modern New Salem, IL as opposed to the historical one that Lincoln lived in based on their placement of it on the map.
I sent a letter to the President as a kid for a school assignment. I got back a signed portrait. I’m certain it was mass produced, but it meant a lot. I’m considering doing the same with my young son and, if this is still done, collecting a string of presidential portraits for him.
A fun special case -- if you send a birth announcement to the White House you will get a response. I believe they respond to wedding announcements too. Not all that useful, but it makes a fun scrapbook item.
How long until Amy replaces Sam entirely
We'll know its getting closer when we see the episode on thwarting coup d'etats.
next year's april fools should be Amy narrating a video after she has taken over the channel
As soon as AI lets her replicate his voice.
As a kid I wrote a letter to the cast of "Happy Days" and they replied back with a group photo signed by each of the actors. Probably not their actual individual signatures, but it still was cool for a kid to receive, and it made a happy memory for me.
I wrote a letter to the White House in March 2022 and got a response in March 2023. If that isn't the perfect analogy for government I don't know what is.
That sounds reasonable considering answering letters is not exactly a core function of government. Before watching this video, I wouldn't have even expected most letters to get read.
That's still good for it being the WHITE HOUSE I wouldn't be complaining
At this point, I mostly watch these videos to discover what task Amy is told to do.
There is a whitehouse veteran's hotline phone number that actually works really well. I've been dealing with the VA since 2006 and I've had 3 problems with the VA that I couldn't seem to get resolved via normal channels. All 3 times I called that hotline the issue was resolved within a few days after having spent weeks trying to resolve it myself through the normal channels. Basically that phone number reverses the typical chain of command and flows from the top down vs bottom up
I wrote to one of my senators for a social studies project in fourth grade. I received, approximately three months later, a return letter that had nothing to do with my original letter lol. I thought it was so cool at the time.
We need to talk about all the ways that Amy is holding that pen wrong 🤯 That is going to haunt my dreams 😱
I sent a simple graduation announcement to the White House when I was in high school. I expected to get a simple mass produced congratulations card they send to everyone. Imagine my surprise when a few months later I get a personalized letter that was hand signed by the President and First Lady.
Twice a year, once in the Spring and once in the Fall, the White House gardens are opened to the public for a tour. The gardens are lovely and the view from the White House Grounds is really impressive and beautiful. It is well worth the time if you get a chance. Once, during college, I was in DC and was walking by the White House. I got to pet Ronald Regan's dog, Lucky, who was being walked by staff. Nice dog.
The only thing that could have stopped this lunatic is a good guy with a gun.
@@howwitty Which lunatic? Lucky was a Good Boy!! Reagan? Good Guys with and without guns also got shot by a literal lunatic. Ruined their lives.
I'm pretty sure if you wrote them a letter about the wonderful world of bricks, you would get their attention.
P.S. I hope Amy is getting well treated and well-fed on a regular basis.
So what I'm hearing is that you didn't mail the letter far enough in advance, and had to go ahead and write the script and publish the video anyway.
There's a guy named Eric who reads them all.
This is true I’m Eric
You misspelled ChatGPT.
@@pluspens2134 get back to work
happened to my buddy Eric.
I sent Biden a wedding invitation (we had a few extra). Took several months, but we got a nice card back with his signature and his wife's signature.
I can’t even imagine the hate mail they get. As much as I hate some politicians I could never imagine writing a mean worse letter
In german federal politics, we have roughly the same system, just slower and more complicated due to it being scanned at the beginning and then being sent to a dozen stops via electronic file until you get an answer maybe 4-6 weeks later
"Assuming your letter wasn't ticking" 😂 these are always so snappily written
Yet again this episode sees the new protagonist Amy take centre stage.
3:07 Not bricks?
I kinda like this new HAI video structure of "We did this thing, here's how it works".
Nice subtle reference of "The Big Guy." ;)
So... has anyone tried to send an AirTag to the white house and if they did, what's the last reportet location it got to?
Hell
@@PosterityIslesNews so the white house?
I feel like it would definitely get stopped by the secret service
@@soylechuga9608 it'd be highyl embarrassing if it didn't get stopped, hence 'last reported location'
Probably a metal detector at the post office.
Correction, Lincoln's New Salem was located in central Illinois, not near Saint Louis like the current small town of New Salem, IL
Hey Sam, good job on this!! Even if a few few details were a bit of, you clearly put in a lot of effort to understand a complicated topic, and I appreciate you.
This seems a bit dishonest. It works pretty much the same in my country, but they sign of with the staff member's name and "on behalf of..."
Impressive, awesome reading and response capabilities for a building!
I wrote a letter to President Bush when I was in elementary school as part of a civics class and actually got a personal response from him (or at least one that was ghost written to appear to be from him). I assume they do take some number of the more general letters and pass them along. Ironically he and the governor were the only ones that gave a personalized response (the state and US senators and state and US representatives all gave me form letter responses).
this is probably just bc i'm a jet lag fan but i'd love to see Ben and the other writers narrating their own videos maybe, if that something they're up for
2:16 a lot of people have already commented about how "Amy" is holding the pen, so I want to say that I like the handwriting and I hope whoever that is doesn't feel insecure about how they write.
Meanwhile my family never even had to write the president to get a letter, we just had a recognized war veteran in our family who happened to die when the president needed veteran support for re-election (and got it). Grandpa was awesome. I don't remember what medal it was, but he got a medal in Vietnam for throwing a live grenade back at the enemy forces. He lived a long life after his conscription. He was a great man and I wish he'd gotten that recognition while he was still alive.
2:16... Who the hell holds a pen like that!!!
AI
It looks very awkward. I like the handwriting, though. It's jaunty.
Amy does.
@@user-gn1cl9ix7p 🤣
"That Sam sure has girly handwriting."
It took about one year from when I typed my letter to the president with my own signature to finally get back to me. I sent my letter to him sometime during the summer in 2021 and he responded in May 2022.
Given how much I hate writing letters, I have respect for the staff who respond to all those letters.
I submitted an inquiry over 2 years ago and never got a response back
I got a response today, almost 2 months after sending my letter. Thanks HAI for the inspiration!
Half as interesting featuring Amy the intern we all need
I find it interesting that many people write the President about matters that would likely make more sense to write their Congressperson or Senator about, since those people have a dedicated staff for handling them. But I am glad those letters apparently don't just disappear into the void and people occasionally get helpful responses back (as per the comments to this video).
I'm almost possitive that the White House chef is paid for by the president and his family themselves. If they don't pay his wages, they 100% do pay for the actual food that is made for them. I know it was just a transition and not really an important part of the video, but my autsim wont let me not say something! lol Great video as always!
The most jarring thing in this video is that the tune used is the one that Just Eat uses on its UK ads...
Like the dialogue in a Edgar White movie the tune is wasted at all.
Did somebody say Just Eat?
Idk how you managed to make a simple informative video be so glaringly partisan
I've only ever attempted to contact one President. A few months into his term, I sent a sincere, respectful email to Donald Trump offering to teach him to read. I even offered to do it in secret. Strangely, his handlers chose not to pass my offer on to him. I assume that's the case anyway, since I got no response.
He probably did recieve it but couldn't read it. SAD.
They probably can't read either, you know Trump likes to be the smartest person in the room.... That really explains everything
@@angiepangie989 True, we can't tell him that 2 + 2 isn't actually 5...
None of them can read, Biden can't even talk.
Absolute mad lad right here
Love Amy's participation! And thrilled to see, at 2:17 - she holds her own the same way I do, which makes me like her immensely. 😁✌️🍍
I wonder if you could write a letter and have it say something like "Dear OPC team, could you send me back the most ridiculous and/or funny response that you have on file?"
"the big guy"
hahaha love it
When I sent a letter to the president some intern goofed up and all i got in response was an empty envelope.
Okay this actually more than just half as interesting, I would say, full as inte
I love the way you have to make a video on something to use it as a geographical reference.
Hi Sam!
If I get one letter back from the President, and another letter back from you, you know which one I'm framing!
Frames are cheap just frame both.
in my highschool government class i wrote a letter to the president at the time being trump, and i got a response after i graduated around a year and a half later "from" biden. so it definitely takes a while
In the near future all this will be replaced by Chat AI.
You can finally chat with the cyberghost of Abraham Lincoln
"The big guy". Too funny.
I ate at that Cheesecake Factory about a month ago after walking all over town with one of my best friends.
Congrats on the reply!
TL;DW Even if the President read your letter, he would not remember having done so.
last wednesday i wrote a letter to biden, he send me back his cell number and some tasteful polaroid nudes
I see you there @2:15, "Cheeky Sideways Grin Guy"
Just wondering why you skipped over the disposition of 'brick' considering that undoubtably accounts for a large portion of mail sent to the while house.
as someone near KCMO that shoutout to grandview had me shook
Don't you hate it when you're minding your own business pooping in the elevator and everybody just stares at you?!
So, I could write a letter from Finland, just to say: "Hello, how are you doing in this fine day?"
How long would it take to get a response if we wrote him a letter about bricks?
Very informative video, thanks. The process is interesting too.
"for the big guy" lol
@2:46: That would actually take place near Dulles, Virginia (the town, not the airport). For a time after 9/11 and the Anthrax Attacks, all mail for the US Government was irradiated to kill any harmful bacteriums. I know this because I live 70 miles from DC and our mail also went through Dulles (along with all Metro DC mail) for years after 9/11 (that info courtesy of our Postmaster at the time). They eventually shut that facility down in 2020, part of the USPS's cutbacks around election time and it has never reopened (not sure if they were still doing the irradiation up until 2020). All Metro DC inbound mail now goes through Merrifield, Virginia (that's letters, packages go through Rockville, Maryland), but I'm not sure if either location still does the irradiation.
Hey this is a ben video not an amy video! Sam when will we see amy on Jet lag!?!
Fun Fact: Despite Sam’s claim at 5:00, excluding State Dinners the President pays for his meals
The future: a reader/scanner powered by A.I. and on the other end a printer printing the reply
Next season on Jetlag: Sam & Joe vs Adam & Ben
I remember writing to the Queen in school and getting a response from Buckingham palace.
This actually made me think of something i never have thought of before.
Do former presidents get the same mail protection? At least to make sure it is safe to handle and open?
All former POTUS get lifetime Secret Service protection, would've been counterproductive if they stop the former president from getting shot but doesn't filter their mail for bioweapon.
The secret service protection extends to former presidents so likely yes.
When I became an Eagle Scout I ended up getting an empty envelope.
Description should say Assistant Postmaster Ben Doyle
"The Big Guy" 😂😂
HANDLED BY USPS MISSILE MAIL TO GET TO THE OPC
So one is by a Panda Express and the other is by a Cheesecake Factory...perhaps I should try to work at one of them 🤔
Joe can't read, so he probably won't be getting back to you
I'd love to know where your got this information
And Joe finally replied! Nice!
This is the first time I actually believed a CZcamsr that told me they use the product they’re sponsored by
As an Eagle Scout I send the president a letter and hopefully it gets back to me very soon!
I winced when I saw how Amy holds a pen. Please pay her enough to use our sponsor: Skillshare!
You're suggesting she's too stupid to know the "right" way to hold a pen?