1 00:00:00,530 --> 00:00:04,130 Today, we’re talking about one of the great questions of our time: “Why didn’t he 2 00:00:04,130 --> 00:00:05,170 write me back?” 3 00:00:05,170 --> 00:00:08,590 The answer is often simple: “he’s just not that into you,” or the far more common 4 00:00:08,590 --> 00:00:09,590 “he forgot.” 5 00:00:09,590 --> 00:00:14,030 But if the “he” in question is President Joseph Robinette Biden Junior, it’s a bit 6 00:00:14,030 --> 00:00:15,389 more complicated. 7 00:00:15,389 --> 00:00:19,130 Because surprisingly, he most likely will write you back… once your message passes 8 00:00:19,130 --> 00:00:22,690 through an intricate, weeks-long vetting, coding, sorting, and response process. 9 00:00:22,690 --> 00:00:25,949 And if the “he” in question is me… uh… same deal. 10 00:00:25,949 --> 00:00:30,960 In ye olden days, George Washington got about five letters a day, and would just reply himself. 11 00:00:30,960 --> 00:00:36,030 But presidential mail volume, like sea levels, is way higher than it was in 1789. 12 00:00:36,030 --> 00:00:40,190 Millard Fillmore averaged a hundred letters a day, Hoover: 800, Eisenhower: over 1,200. 13 00:00:40,190 --> 00:00:44,250 Obama: over 20,000, though most of those were probably Joe Biden making sure they were still 14 00:00:44,250 --> 00:00:45,870 going to the movies on Friday. 15 00:00:45,870 --> 00:00:49,890 Overwhelmed by the mail, William McKinley tapped one of his advisors to cover it, creating 16 00:00:49,890 --> 00:00:53,170 what has since grown into the Office of Presidential Correspondence. 17 00:00:53,170 --> 00:00:57,640 Today, the OPC reads every letter and email that reaches the White House, and every president 18 00:00:57,640 --> 00:00:59,980 has his own unique relationship with the mail. 19 00:00:59,980 --> 00:01:04,409 And for some of them, that relationship goes back to before his presidential era. 20 00:01:04,409 --> 00:01:08,000 Obama used the mail to approximate the connection he’d felt with everyday Americans on the 21 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:11,910 campaign trail, and a 24-year-old Abraham Lincoln was actually the postmaster of New 22 00:01:11,910 --> 00:01:16,150 Salem, Illinois—a gig that came with free postage and one free newspaper subscription, 23 00:01:16,150 --> 00:01:18,090 which is also how I pay my writers. 24 00:01:18,090 --> 00:01:22,150 Harry Truman was technically the postmaster of Grandview, Missouri, but he never did the 25 00:01:22,150 --> 00:01:23,150 job. 26 00:01:23,150 --> 00:01:26,010 Instead, he let a local widow do it for him and collect his pay under the title “assistant 27 00:01:26,010 --> 00:01:27,010 postmaster.” 28 00:01:27,010 --> 00:01:29,650 This, too, is how I pay my writers. 29 00:01:29,650 --> 00:01:32,659 Once in office, the president designs his own mail diet. 30 00:01:32,659 --> 00:01:36,580 Kennedy’s staff aggregated public opinion on key issues from the mail then sent him 31 00:01:36,580 --> 00:01:37,580 summaries. 32 00:01:37,580 --> 00:01:40,579 Nixon would only read friendly letters, both because he was a baby and because he mined 33 00:01:40,579 --> 00:01:41,800 the mail for good speech anecdotes. 34 00:01:41,800 --> 00:01:46,079 And when a kid wrote offering to mow the White House lawn, Trump brought him over for this 35 00:01:46,079 --> 00:01:47,790 very weird photo op. 36 00:01:47,790 --> 00:01:51,790 These days, most letters get some kind of response written by the staff at the OPC and 37 00:01:51,790 --> 00:01:53,400 bearing the president’s signature. 38 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:58,149 But how does a staff of about 45 employees, 35 interns, and hundreds of rotating volunteers 39 00:01:58,149 --> 00:02:01,180 answer thousands of letters, emails, and calls a day? 40 00:02:01,180 --> 00:02:04,369 Say it with me: complex logistics! 41 00:02:04,369 --> 00:02:07,890 If you go to the White House website, they give you letter-writing instructions—including 42 00:02:07,890 --> 00:02:11,290 to please write on paper… which seems like a strange request until you learn that they’ve 43 00:02:11,290 --> 00:02:14,660 gotten messages on paper towels, baseball bats, and mannequin legs. 44 00:02:14,660 --> 00:02:19,580 So naturally, I had HAI’s outside correspondent Amy grab some 8.5 by 11, head to the post 45 00:02:19,580 --> 00:02:21,800 office, and try to get us something back. 46 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:25,360 Knowing OPC staff would be replying under their boss’ name, Amy thought it only fair 47 00:02:25,360 --> 00:02:29,390 to write under mine, which I did not sign off on but one thousand percent approve of. 48 00:02:29,390 --> 00:02:32,430 When you send a letter to the White House, it’ll pass through USPS’ Government Mails 49 00:02:32,430 --> 00:02:36,330 Annex in DC, right between the National Arboretum and a Panda Express. 50 00:02:36,330 --> 00:02:39,221 Here—or possibly in a secret location that doesn’t show up in tracking—the Secret 51 00:02:39,221 --> 00:02:42,480 Service will screen your letter to make sure it’s not trying to assassinate anybody. 52 00:02:42,480 --> 00:02:46,160 I’m not sure exactly where this happens, so shoutout to the Secret Service for living 53 00:02:46,160 --> 00:02:47,160 up to their name. 54 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:51,330 Assuming your letter wasn’t ticking, its next stop is the OPC in the Eisenhower Executive 55 00:02:51,330 --> 00:02:55,069 Office Building, which is right by the White House and nowhere near a Panda Express… 56 00:02:55,069 --> 00:02:57,269 though only nine mins from the Cheesecake Factory. 57 00:02:57,269 --> 00:03:00,720 Every letter that reaches the OPC gets read and coded with a “disposition” in the 58 00:03:00,720 --> 00:03:01,780 top-right corner. 59 00:03:01,780 --> 00:03:05,240 There are hundreds of them, aligned with issues people write about: Ukraine. 60 00:03:05,240 --> 00:03:06,240 Taxes. 61 00:03:06,240 --> 00:03:07,240 Bees. 62 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:09,130 Or in my case: Amtrak and junk fees. 63 00:03:09,130 --> 00:03:12,300 There are other codes as well: “sensitive” means the letter gets handed off to a staffer 64 00:03:12,300 --> 00:03:16,190 specializing in presidential condolences, while a red dot means the writer is an imminent 65 00:03:16,190 --> 00:03:20,500 danger to themself or others, and their letter goes to someone in crisis response. 66 00:03:20,500 --> 00:03:24,390 Some messages go to separate teams: for example, there’s the kid team, which sadly isn’t 67 00:03:24,390 --> 00:03:27,520 a misfit pack of juice-fueled eleven-year-olds that pen thoughtful missives from a White 68 00:03:27,520 --> 00:03:28,520 House sub-basement… 69 00:03:28,520 --> 00:03:30,410 it’s just people who read mail from kids. 70 00:03:30,410 --> 00:03:33,720 The casework team covers letter writers that need specialized attention from a particular 71 00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:36,640 department, like a federal prisoner who’s not getting their medication. 72 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:39,989 There’s also the greetings team, which covers requests for birthday cards and the like; 73 00:03:39,989 --> 00:03:43,409 and the gifts team, which handles stuff like the countless jelly beans people used to send 74 00:03:43,409 --> 00:03:47,310 Ronald Reagan—either because he loved them or, better, in hopes that he would choke. 75 00:03:47,310 --> 00:03:50,970 Any letter not passed elsewhere is sorted into a bin based on its disposition. 76 00:03:50,970 --> 00:03:55,250 A team of OPC writers keeps different form letters up-to-date to send out for every single 77 00:03:55,250 --> 00:03:59,180 disposition, so everyone in the “bees” bin gets the newest “bees” letter, and 78 00:03:59,180 --> 00:04:00,180 so on. 79 00:04:00,180 --> 00:04:04,910 Like Obama before him, Joe Biden reads ten letters a day, handpicked by the OPC staff. 80 00:04:04,910 --> 00:04:07,860 Readers nominate letters for this honor by writing “SAMPLE” in the corner, then the 81 00:04:07,860 --> 00:04:11,409 higher-ups narrow down those hundreds to the ten the president will read—a mixture of 82 00:04:11,409 --> 00:04:15,910 hopeful and desperate, grateful and furious, tragic and “drawing of dog by child.” 83 00:04:15,910 --> 00:04:19,610 They erase the codes, scan the letters, and send them around the White House before they 84 00:04:19,610 --> 00:04:21,630 go into a purple folder for the big guy. 85 00:04:21,630 --> 00:04:25,030 The President eventually returns the letters to the OPC with notes for their response in 86 00:04:25,030 --> 00:04:28,680 his name or, on rare occasions, a hand-written response of his own. 87 00:04:28,680 --> 00:04:32,410 Which brings us back to that big question: Why didn’t he write me back? 88 00:04:32,410 --> 00:04:33,410 Because he didn’t. 89 00:04:33,410 --> 00:04:35,410 Not to my mean letter, or my nice one. 90 00:04:35,410 --> 00:04:37,820 But it’s probably more a matter of time than beef. 91 00:04:37,820 --> 00:04:41,380 It took eleven days just for my letters to get there, and Secret Service vetting apparently 92 00:04:41,380 --> 00:04:45,320 creates a two-week lag of its own before you get to the careful, painstaking process the 93 00:04:45,320 --> 00:04:47,720 OPC staff takes with every letter they get. 94 00:04:47,720 --> 00:04:51,970 So I might have to wait a little longer before Diamond Joe hits me back about my two letters, 95 00:04:51,970 --> 00:04:56,290 but at least I know the fine, hardworking people of the OPC—the ears and heart of 96 00:04:56,290 --> 00:04:59,570 the White House—have gotten our third one. 97 00:04:59,570 --> 00:05:04,639 Now, when Joe Biden wants healthy, home-cooked meals, he can hit up the White House kitchen. 98 00:05:04,639 --> 00:05:08,720 But most of us don’t live in a mansion with a private chef paid for by the US taxpayer, 99 00:05:08,720 --> 00:05:12,190 so if we want a healthy home-cooked meal we have to plan out recipes, go to the grocery 100 00:05:12,190 --> 00:05:16,220 store, prep, cook, clean, then deal with all sorts of extra supplies that’ll inevitably 101 00:05:16,220 --> 00:05:17,220 go in the garbage. 102 00:05:17,220 --> 00:05:21,630 That is unless, of course, you use this video's sponsor, Hello Fresh. 103 00:05:21,630 --> 00:05:25,250 They take all the hassle out of cooking by delivering fresh, pre-portioned and partially 104 00:05:25,250 --> 00:05:28,889 prepped ingredients so you have everything you need to make the recipes they provide—with 105 00:05:28,889 --> 00:05:30,069 no food waste left over. 106 00:05:30,069 --> 00:05:34,030 I’ve been using Hello Fresh for three years as a genuine customer—seriously, I signed 107 00:05:34,030 --> 00:05:36,889 up before they started sponsoring—and I’m a huge fan. 108 00:05:36,889 --> 00:05:40,699 It’s cheaper than grocery store shopping, and WAY cheaper than takeout, plus it helps 109 00:05:40,699 --> 00:05:44,479 me fit cooking into even my busiest weeks with the “Fast & Fresh” options that are 110 00:05:44,479 --> 00:05:46,430 ready in just fifteen minutes or less. 111 00:05:46,430 --> 00:05:50,670 So if you want to find out why I find them the best way to make dinner, go to hellofresh.com 112 00:05:50,670 --> 00:05:55,550 and use code HAI16 for sixteen free meals, plus free shipping, plus you’ll be supporting 113 00:05:55,550 --> 00:05:57,230 this channel while you’re at it.