Tweet by Schooley showing three red billboards reading DO NOT CONGRATULATE referencing the Three Billboards film

DO NOT CONGRATULATE

2018catchphraseclassic

Published October 20, 2026

DO NOT CONGRATULATE started as a plea written in all capital letters inside Donald Trump's briefing papers before his March 2018 call with Vladimir Putin. After Trump congratulated the Russian president anyway and the briefing leaked to The Washington Post, Twitter users spent the following days captioning photos of pets, movie posters and bad decisions with the shouted phrase.

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Overview

At its core, DO NOT CONGRATULATE puts the all-caps directive above any image of a person, pet or cartoon character about to do the exact thing being prohibited. @Rschooley's parody of Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri replaced each billboard with the warning text, and @themaxburns captioned a dog photo with it, both circulated widely according to KYM's write-up6. Direct URLs for individual example tweets are not archived in the sources available for this entry, though Mashable and The Daily Dot embedded several in same-week round-ups78.

Tone is dry sarcasm aimed at anyone who ignores clear instructions, political or otherwise. The phrase gets its force from the fact that senior national security staff literally wrote the words in capitals inside a briefing memo, as reported by The Washington Post1. Mashable's write-up pointed out that Trump ignored the warning and then volunteered the congratulation to a room of reporters on the same day, which gave the joke its setup and punchline in one news cycle8.

Origin & Background

Platform
Washington Post leak (source) / Twitter (viral spread)
Date
2018

On March 20, 2018, Trump told reporters at the Oval Office that he had phoned Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on his recent re-election, a decision Senator John McCain called inappropriate because an American president "does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections"2. Later that day, The Washington Post reported that Trump's written briefing materials for the Putin call carried the instruction "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" in capital letters, which he either skipped or disregarded1. CNN's analysis the same day noted that Putin had just taken more than 70 percent of a vote with no real competition, and that the shouted directive existed in part because of the Skripal nerve-agent poisoning in Britain plus Russia's interference in the 2016 US election3.

How It Spread

Jokes began appearing on Twitter the afternoon of March 20, 2018, after The Washington Post broke the briefing-paper story1. Users shaped the format around the premise that Trump, like any person told flatly not to do something, would do it immediately. Mashable rounded up early examples the same day, calling the directive one Trump proved unable to follow8. The Daily Dot documented the Twitter run the next day, including the Three Billboards remix and other parody warning signs7.

Coverage reached HuffPost on March 21, which compiled captioned pet photos and sarcastic advice tweets directed at the president10. In a Guardian report that same day, Trump defended the call on Twitter, writing that "Getting along with Russia (and others) is a good thing," which gave the joke format another news hook to feed on4. NBC News described the leak as a sign of a staff rift inside the national security team, and CNN reported that Trump was fuming over who inside his circle had handed the memo to reporters, with one senior official calling the leak "a fireable offense and likely illegal"95.

Momentum stalled within a week as the news cycle moved on. KYM catalogued the catchphrase alongside other 2018 Trump-era political memes, documenting the viral tweets and the news coverage from Mashable, The Daily Dot and HuffPost6. As a reusable caption, DO NOT CONGRATULATE still shows up on images of people about to make an obviously bad call, though it is now tied to that specific March 2018 week rather than any ongoing format trend.

Timeline

2018-03-18

Vladimir Putin wins a fourth term in Russia's presidential election with more than 70 percent of the vote in a race international monitors criticized as overly controlled.

2018-03-20

Trump phones Putin, congratulates him on the win, and tells reporters at the Oval Office he had done so during what he called a very good call.

2018-03-20

The Washington Post reports that Trump's briefing materials for the call said DO NOT CONGRATULATE in capital letters, which he ignored.

2018-03-20

Mashable publishes an early round-up of Twitter jokes using the leaked phrase as a caption.

2018-03-21

CNN reports Trump is furious about the leak and chief of staff John Kelly is seeking to identify the leaker; Trump defends the call on Twitter.

2018-03-21

The Daily Dot and HuffPost publish follow-up pieces compiling tweets, including @Rschooley's Three Billboards parody and @themaxburns's dog photo.

How to Use This Meme

Posts typically place "DO NOT CONGRATULATE" in capital letters above or beside an image of someone, a pet or a cartoon character about to do the thing being prohibited. Common variations include parody warning signs, movie-poster edits like the Three Billboards riff documented by KYM, and dog photos captioned as if the dog had been handed its own briefing memo6.

Frequently Asked Questions