The Pour Over Today - How Presidents ‘Sign’ Without Signing — Autopens Explained

Episode Date: December 6, 2025

Readers of The Pour Over pick a topic to have explained, and Jason and Kathleen have to get Joe to understand it in less than 30 minutes… This week, they’re explaining Autopens. Looking to support us? You can choose to pay ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Check out The Pour Over's Gift Guide!⁠⁠⁠⁠ Check out our sponsors! We actually use and enjoy every single one. Cru Safe House Project Life Application Study Bible CCCU Upside Mosh LMNT Theology in the Raw Not Just Sunday Podcast She Reads Truth The Pour Over’s Newsletters: ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Pour Over⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Decaf⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠News Health⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠Praying the News

Uh, Joe, you have exciting life news. Yes, very exciting news. Our daughter was born last week. Hey, hey, Eva. How's everyone doing? Yes, everyone's good. Everyone's good. The whole process went smoothly.

All glory to God. Everything, everyone's healthy. Um, we're trying to get whatever sleeps, naps in that we can. But, okay, so everything's all good, right? And it's a joyous occasion. I do want to bring up one of my favorite parts about having a newborn, the meal train. Yes. Oh. Have kids for the food, honestly.

Okay, so you know how there's that saying the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach? That is me to a T. So I'm just loving this time right now. I need to give a shout to everyone who is signed up for our meal train. How generous. It really makes a huge difference when people just show up at your door. or someone, you know, friends, family, someone you love, and they have a hot, ready meal.

So I'm just telling you guys, this is one of the best parts of having a newborn. You know, I have not personally looked at your meal train, but Hannah was talking about it, and it's apparently very soup heavy. Like, there's like, here are things that you can bring, and, like, the first five are just all different types of soup. It's because Emily put on there,

hey, her favorites are soups. And so people took that to heart and have made a lot of soups. And the kind of the funny underlying thing that people don't know is soups aren't my favorite because I love like a hearty, not too much like liquid. Like I want to feel very full after. You want pasta, we know. Yeah, yeah, lasagna. You want big ziti. Yeah.

And literally two people, one person sign up for lasagna and one person sign up for ziti. So I'm very much looking forward to those days. But in the meantime, I'm going to have to endure through the soups. No, they're all good. They're all good. But yes, lots of soups. Hannah is correct. That's great, and we can, maybe we'll bring caramel bars who, wait, shout out, shout out.

I don't know if this is. My cousin, Kegan, listens to these and texted my mom, hi Kagan, texted my mom and got the caramel bar recipe. And that is, like, I had to get married and leave the state before I got that recipe. And Kegan, you live in my state. Like, Iowa is my territory for caramel bars. And apparently that just means nothing. And my mom was like, hey, just don't bake them in Illinois or bring them to any event that she's going to be at.

But, oh, sure, just tramp all all over, Jason's Carmelbar territory. So, hey, we're going to have to, we're going to have to do it off. That's right. Yeah. Hello and welcome to another episode of TPO Explains. I'm Joe, podcast producer here at the pourover. And I'm here with Jason, our founder and editor-in-chief and Kathleen. our managing editor.

So here's the idea behind the show. Our readers share which topics they want us to explore, and then we bring that to the podcast. Today's winner? Auto pens. That's right. Auto pens. Auto pens.

They've been in the news off and on for like a, I don't know, I guess two decades, but a lot more recently. So, Joe, what is an auto pen? From what I gather, it is the term used when a president basically signs any bill or law but isn't really taking to heart what that all entails. Whether it's like just a quick sign and needs to bypass it through quickly or, and I don't know if this is true. I'm going to learn from you guys today. I don't know if they delegate a proxy to like own and manage how to decide if an auto pen gets used. So an auto pen is a mechanical device that reproduces a person's exact signature in a pre-programmed template.

So what you said gets at the heart of some of the controversy, but an auto pen itself is literally like an automatic pen. And they're frequently used by presidents, but it's like, yeah, you sign once and then you set up this machine that is going to, with the exact same pressure and angle or whatever, just replicate your signature so that next time you don't actually have to go to the trouble of holding the pen. This machine will sign for you. So technically speaking, we're talking about a physical device. Yes. So it was first invented or the kind of precursors to the modern auto pen were first patented in 1803. And then the fully automated version was first invented in the 1930s. Yeah. Yeah. So actually the auto pen is kind of like a Kleenex situation. Like it's a mechanical pen, but auto pen is like a brand name. Oh, did you know that? No, I didn't. Yeah, the precursor in the 1800s, which I know we'll talk more about, but it was called a polygraph because it technically was like two pens and you would write something and another pen would be writing what you're writing at the same time, just copying it.

And then the auto pin itself, like the company called Autopin was the 1940s. Hmm. All right, Joe. Why do presidents use the auto pen? I would imagine presidents are very busy, and if this is going to automate something, it's probably mainly because the he or she president doesn't have as much time to sit down, sign through hundreds of things, and so the audio pen can automate that work. Yeah, what type of – I was kind of surprised to think through all the different things

presidents have to sign. So, like, off the top of your head, what do you think a president has to sign? Okay, bills. once it lands on their desk they're going to give the final approval do they I'm sure they get a lot of mail so do they respond or someone maybe drafts of a response and they give the thumbs up

and then they have an auto pen as the signature yeah I mean past like legislation just like daily stuff letters of support well wishes thank you notes photos authorizations like military you know accommodations stuff like that congressional correspondence a number of things um there was a in 19502 president

Truman wrote that he had to sign his name it was like in his diary he was like I signed my name on letters and documents about 600 times a day oh my gosh so so and I think it was actually Truman who is believed to be the first president to use the modern auto pin so maybe he was just like really laying the foundation he was like I really need this guy. I sign my name 600 times a day. But to be clear, and like to Kathleen's point, a lot of this is is not signing a bill into law. It's like, hey, we're fundraising. Hey, there's like memorabilia or like commemorative things or whatever. And it's like, yeah, the president's name is just being kind of slapped on it, which it's not like carrying the force

of law, it's a, it's a nice gesture. It's a fun personal touch. And then the first president that we think used any type of machine like this was Thomas Jefferson. So even back then, he had a lot of letters to write and he used that polygraph machine to write to it one time. Yeah, and that polygraph is still available for viewing at the Smithsonian. Interesting. All right. So you've mentioned laws and bills so the question is can can a auto pen be used to sign a bill into law legally I'm going to say yes and this is probably where the controversy comes but I will say yes for now yeah okay so the short answer is yes and honestly the only slightly shorter or longer answer is it's

controversial. But in 2005, George W. Bush was told he could use the auto pen to sign a law. And he was like, I don't know about that. That feels like, you know, it could be controversial. So he asked the Department of Justice, like, hey, is that allowed? And they came back with an opinion. And so Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution, says that a bill becomes a law when it is, quote, signed by the president. But it doesn't specify that that has to be done by hand or in person or with a pen. And so the DOJ said, in their opinion, quote, the president may sign a bill within the meaning of Article 1, Section 7 by directing a subordinate to affix the president's signature to such a bill, for example, by AutoPen. So Bush gets this legal opinion that, yeah, no, it's fine. And but still doesn't do it. He still never used it. Yeah. And actually, there was a time like months later, later in 2005,

where he was at his ranch in Texas, a bill gets passed and needs to, there's all these deadlines and different things. And he like takes an overnight flight back to the White House just to sign this thing. And there are lots of, like, throughout history, there are examples. Clinton had a bill chartered, like a private jet, bring this bill to him in Turkey for him to sign in time. Reagan did the same thing when he was in China. And so, like, there are these time sensitive things. And it was always thought, okay, the president needs to sign this by this deadline. So we just got to get this piece of paper to him. And Bush was told, no, that's not the case, but didn't want to cross the line.

Do you know, who do you guys think is the, I guess the better question is, has an auto pin ever been used to sign legislation? So we got the, we got the DOJ opinion that it's allowed. Bush never did. Has it happened since? Yes. Do you think it was the first person? Yeah.

Yeah, I'm trying to think of it was Biden or was, should I go back to Trump 1.0 or Obama. Let's go Obama. Let's see. Did Obama do it? Yeah. In 2011, he became the first known president to sign legislation with an auto pin. He was in France and signed the Patriot Act, or a Patriot Act extension. And that obviously sounded some, sounded off some criticism wondering if it was.

constitutionally sounded there. I did find this opinion from this guy. His name, shout out to Terry L. Turnip Seed from University of Florida law. His last name is Turnip Seed? Terry Turnip Seed, yep. He wrote a paper in 2012 saying, yeah, this is unconstitutional. We cannot have presidents doing this. And his whole point was that the opinion piece written in 2005 was like, okay, yeah, it has to be the president's signature, like, and you can use whatever to do it. But turnip seed really feels like the president should be there in person while it's happening. Like, use the auto plan all you want, but the president should still be there. So, you know, that's the first time it was used.

That's an interesting opinion because I was thinking, I was like, you know, it would be weird if, like, okay, what happens if something happens to the president's hand and they're like in this big cast or and like just physically can't do it? It's like, is the thought, oh. No, that was his whole thing. It was like, of course we went away for like a president who is physically incapable to be able to still sign things. But, and then he goes back to like, UK law from like the 1600s where it's like, but the House of Lords says that if you're going to sign a will, then if you're going to use a proxy to sign a will, you need to have a person in the room. So why shouldn't we use the same thing? Her impede really was fired up. You know, I'm honestly, I'm kind of with him.

I think that's a, like, there should be a way to say, like, oh, the president broke his thumb. We can't, it's not that we can't pass legislation. But the rationale behind the DOJ opinion was basically like, it's the president's decision that's legally required, not the act of holding the pen. But it does introduce some great area, and we'll get into more of the controversy. So Obama was the first to do it in May of 2011 with the Patriot Act extension on legislation. on legislation, yes. And this was controversial. There was a lot of criticism around it, but it was never challenged in court. He then did it again in November to sign a continuing resolution and keep the government open. And then again in 2013, he was vacationing in Hawaii and there were tax credits that were going to expire. And so he requested, hey, use the auto pen to do this. And I could not find the clip, but I have a distinct memory of a clip of him talking about it, and him saying, like, listen, the options were that I fly back, you know, he's like, which is a huge ordeal, you know,

it's just a pain to fly Air Force One. There's 100, 200 people involved, very expensive. Or I charter a private jet for this piece of paper. Like, it just felt most prudent to say, yes, I want that thing signed. It can be signed. you do it. Let's not overcomplicate this. And the man was vacationing in Hawaii. He probably did not want to leave. Yeah, Michelle was not on board with cutting the vacation early so that he could hold a pen. And then there's one other record. So it's been used four times. And the last one was

Biden used it to sign a one week funding extension for the FAA sometime in late 2024. So four times and all of these it has been like publicly declared by the White House like hey the president told us to use this pen or the auto pen we're doing it every time there's been kind of criticism but again it's never gone to court and never been challenged and so everything falls back to this DOJ opinion that says it's okay that's just for legislation right yeah so kind of at the the heart of the controversy is around Biden, who has since leaving office and been accused of overusing the auto pen on not bills to become law, but other things that carry official documents like pardons, executive orders and stuff. And he has acknowledged that it was used in that way and

defended it and said, I made the decision every time to use it. Part of the controversy is that there's no, there was no public declaration, hey, the auto pen is being used and the president authorized it. And so there's some question of like, man, he signed hundreds of executive orders and all these pardons, which was done by the auto pen and which wasn't. And so it feels like there's a lack of transparency. And then other critics, specifically President Trump, has said, yeah, and he wasn't aware that it was being used. The staffers had taken this auto pen. And we're signing executive orders without his authorization or knowledge. And now we don't even know which ones to go back in question because all this was done secretly.

And yeah, that's the claim on the table. Right, right. There's been at least one, like, example of somebody saying this has happened before. Jason, did you come across this? No. So in 1992, Vice President Dan Quayle, he blamed a staffer, and actually he did it twice, said a staffer used his auto pen and signed a letter without his knowledge. And so twice he said he got, you know, pushed back on something that somebody received. I think one time it was like a donor, a request for a donor to go to a minimum security prison instead of a medium security prison.

And people are like, why would you do this? And he said, oh, I didn't do it. A staffer did it and put my name on it. It was a standard constituent like business and I didn't know. So, I mean, at least twice people have claimed that they didn't know that somebody was using the auto pen. Hey, it's Emily from the pourover. The holidays are full of generosity and also receipts. Between road trips, grocery halls, and all those just one more thing runs, it adds up fast.

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So I'm guessing just anyone else that gets a lot of fan mail or they need to respond. So how about celebrities? Jason. All the fan mail that Jason receives. Yes, yes. Yeah. So other politicians, members of Congress, some governors reportedly have them. There were some business leaders, so there was a, the former Enron chairman, Ken Lay, his legal team argued in 2006 that he couldn't face bank charges because he didn't actually sign some of these documents and he was still convicted.

He used an auto pen. Yeah. And he was still convicted. And then there are some celebrities. But part of it is no one, no one like openly other than the president. no one really openly has an auto pen because it sort of defeats the purpose of the personal touch that you're getting if you realize it actually wasn't personal. So there are people who have been caught using an auto pen or accused of using an auto pen. Bob Dylan apologized for using an auto pen on limited edition copies of his book. He said he had vertigo and it was supposed to sign a whole bunch and his team was like, oh, just use the auto pen. And then it came out that It's like all these signatures are identical and fans had paid $600 for his signature, which then he didn't do. And so they got refunded and apologized and stuff.

But that's a little bit of the like posture towards them is they exist. They can, uh, I looked it up. It's, I was going to ask, can I buy an auto pen? Yes. And they're, they're like, so it's like $10,000 to $20,000. It still has some thank you notes to write for his meal train. Yeah, you're going to need a lot of meals to justify the auto pen. But it seems one of the things that I saw was it was a business that makes these auto pens.

And basically the pitch was, hey, businesses, if you're writing letters to like letters to customers or deals or whatever, put it in handwriting. and it will catch people's eye and they'll, they'll, like, they're more likely to open and reply. Okay, on a personal note, I receive, like, from a local car dealership, like, hey, Joe, we know this vehicle that you have and someone is interested in it. And, you know, it just looks so personalized and handwritten and even the signature. But now that you tell me about this auto pen, I'm guessing a business like that might use an auto pen. And it's, I was looking at it.

And it's like, man, there's no way around the fact that this is just like deceptive and feels slimy and you don't want to be caught. Because it's like each font has five or six different variations of each letter so that they'll never know. And it's like, right. And so you know. Are there like varying degrees of formality? Like you could say a quick signature, formal signature. Yeah. So that was another thing is that presidents reportedly have multiple like, hey, if it's, you know, you just write in, you'll get their like.

kind of sloppy signature, because that's what it's expected on this thing. But it's like, hey, this is like a letter to Congress. We'll take the time to do it a little bit nicer. Fascinating. I'm just like picturing the prompt. Like, okay, now this one is for if people want you to wish them happy birthday. Close your eyes. Imagine it.

Write your name. Okay, now this one is if it's the elf on the shelf and you use your left hand. Nice. So you said other people have been accused of using it. Is that like the accusation is, hey, all of these signatures look alike? Yes, yeah. So the general premise is that no two times you sign your name, is it perfect? And so if it's ever perfect, it's been used by an auto pen.

And like for collectors also, so I looked, I looked up and it was like, who uses an auto pen? And I saw basically every celebrity's name. And then, and then like fans refuting that they're, you know, it's like Taylor Swift would never, you know, know and it's like look at how different these things are and and who knows you know but if if someone is known if someone is known to use an auto pen or have an auto pen then that signature is much less valuable and may need to be authenticated by a you know a joe kim collector oh pawn stars there we go there we go um it's interesting that you say like bob dillan was like he's oh I had vertigo, and they're just like, but knowing that you have to like write your signature,

upload it, this is a $20,000 machine. Like this wasn't just a, I have vertigo. Let me run to Walgreens and grab an auto pin. So I don't like, he had the auto pin probably, but you think? He, he said that he got it in 2019. This is controversial. Yeah, I mean, he at least apologized and was very open with it. He said that he got an auto pen in 2019 and used it, started using it because of,

of vertigo and then continued using it through the pandemic because he's like there's all these books that you want to sign and if you've ever seen like videos of author like they have a whole team where it's like a stack of books and they're just sitting there moving their arm and the books you know move through the conveyor belt they pull them yeah exactly it was like they I didn't have staff to do that and so we just like set up the auto and oh interesting and so he he was saying hey I was assured that this was like a thing and I shouldn't have done it and refunded people and made it right. But that's the setting and why someone would want to do it.

Yeah. I did see, which I thought was, I don't know, I don't know why more people don't think about this. There was something invented in 2004 called the Long Pen, which is like you would write your name on a touchscreen, and then remotely a mechanical pen would, like, do what you're doing from wherever. and the use case was like if you're holding a remote book signing and you want to like sign the book but you're not there so I don't know I'm like okay why don't people use the long pen more for these like controversial like legislation things if that exists like take the long pen to Hawaii put it in a Ziploc bag on the beach and then if you need to whip it out there you go Obama leaves it in his pocket dives in the ocean and it's like oh I just broke my love long pen.

Sorry, guys. Yeah. Wild. What if the Bible didn't just inform your mind, but also transformed your life? That's the heart behind the Life Application Study Bible. It's more than notes and context. It's a guide to living out God's Word every day. With over 10,000 study notes, character profiles, maps, and book introductions,

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best kept secrets in Washington, the robot that sits in for the president. So kind of peeled back the curtains. It was controversial, as you can imagine. And then there's also an entire book dedicated to the auto pin. In 1965, Charles Hamilton published the robot that helped make a president about John F. Kennedy's use of the auto pin and how his signature changed. But you would have to pay like $150, $200 to see this book. Like, it's a collect. item at this point. I was not able to see any excerpts online, unfortunately. Wow. Man, I can't imagine it's that good.

I would really like it for Christmas. All right. Listeners out there, you know what I'm just kidding. I really don't want it. No, I really don't want it. You're going to get several copies. All right. What about Christian perspectives, guys? I'll go so my my first thought was I mean right now why it's in the news is all this controversy and you know Trump saying Biden wasn't even a real president because the auto pen was signing everything and it was just the staffers and Biden saying no I authorized all this and um it just felt like you know I have no impact on that debate

and it's not good for me to dwell on it and think about it or speak about it or rile people up. And so just thinking about like absorbing, absorbing that anger when that topic comes up, listening, maybe talking about the fun facts of the Autopin and just kind of being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry. So that was my perspective. I feel like my perspectives tend to be always choose humility. But with this one, I kind of tried to push past that because, of course, it's easy to say like, oh, just choose humility and don't get, you know, up in arms about this. But what's the root of it? And for me, it was a turnoff perspective. It was like, at the end of the day, we're talking about a robotic pen.

I don't know, that just kind of all these little stories were put in perspective for me whenever I think about. the bigger things that we could be discussing or, you know, focusing our efforts toward. Yeah, it's good. Absolutely. Joe, do you want me to live on camera so everyone knows that my auto pen didn't do this? I'll sign the stock. And we can get Kathleen to sign it later, but there you go. Do you want it on the screen or no?

No, because then people can look at it and replicate it. It's a whole thing. So if that was the caramel bar recipe, that would be a lot more valuable. But unfortunately, you can't do anything with that. No. Sherry, I'm sorry. We won't show it. Don't worry. All right. Well, thanks, everyone, for joining us on another episode of TPO Explains. As a reminder, you can watch this episode on YouTube and Spotify.

Make sure to like, comment, and subscribe. We'd love to hear your thoughts and feedback. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time. Hi. Hey, Nate at the Poor over here. I want you to know about a must listen in my podcast, Q, Theology in the Raw. Not every guest on the show sees things the same way, and that's the point.

Listening to tough theological topics get hashed out from a variety of angles helps me to think deeply and love widely. Theology in the Raw tackles faith, culture, sexuality, and other hot topics. with honesty and humility. With over 2,000 episodes and guests from across the Christian spectrum, you'll be challenged, encouraged, and reminded that you're not alone. Search Theology in the Raw on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.