Obama actually writes back to some of his trolls

President Obama has a good track record dealing with trolls.

At the State of the Union address in January he silenced Republicans jeering at the fact he's leaving office with a quick off the cuff take down, reminding them he had no more campaigns to run because he won both of them.

And the 2011 White House Correspondents' dinner he even showed the opening of the Lion King in response to all the speculation that he wasn't born in the US.

But in an interview with entertainment news programme Extra on Thursday Obama said that when he gets letters from critics, he sometimes writes genuine letters back.

Obama sat down with interviewer Jerry Penacoli, who thanked the president for the Affordable Care Act's impact on his own life when he was diagnosed with stage III melanoma.

Obama said that hearing from people like Penacoli and others who write to him reminded him that his job makes "a difference in a lot of people's lives".

Obama: I get ten letters a night out of the 40,000 letters and emails and messages that we get, some of them are just saying thank you for something, some of them are saying you're an idiot…

Penacoli: Do you answer the ones who call you an idiot?

Obama: I do!

Penacoli: Are they surprised?

Obama: I think sometimes they are... I try to address their concerns.

Watch the full Extra interview here.

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