# DO NOT CONGRATULATE 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. ## Origin 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 disregarded[1]. 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 election[3]. - **Platform:** Washington Post leak (source) / Twitter (viral spread) - **Creator:** Unknown - **Date:** 2018 ## 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-up[6]. 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-ups[7][8]. 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 Post[1]. 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 cycle[8]. ## How It Spread Jokes began appearing on Twitter the afternoon of March 20, 2018, after The Washington Post broke the briefing-paper story[1]. 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 follow[8]. The Daily Dot documented the Twitter run the next day, including the Three Billboards remix and other parody warning signs[7]. Coverage reached HuffPost on March 21, which compiled captioned pet photos and sarcastic advice tweets directed at the president[10]. 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 on[4]. 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"[9][5]. 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 HuffPost[6]. 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. ## How to Use 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 memo[6]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is DO NOT CONGRATULATE? DO NOT CONGRATULATE is a catchphrase and image caption format drawn from a leaked instruction inside Donald Trump's briefing papers before his March 2018 call with Vladimir Putin, which Trump then ignored on the call[1]. ### Where did DO NOT CONGRATULATE come from? The phrase came from a Washington Post report on March 20, 2018, which said Trump's national security advisers wrote DO NOT CONGRATULATE in all capital letters inside the briefing materials for his Putin call[1]. ### What does DO NOT CONGRATULATE mean? Literally, it was a warning from Trump's national security team not to congratulate Putin on winning a sham election; online it became a shouted all-caps caption for any image showing someone about to do the thing they were told not to do[3][6]. ### How do you use DO NOT CONGRATULATE? Posts place the phrase in capital letters above or beside an image of a person, pet or character about to disobey an obvious instruction, with the humor coming from the mismatch between the shouted directive and the predictable action[6][7]. ### Is DO NOT CONGRATULATE still popular? No, it had its viral run during the week of March 20, 2018, and is now a classic 2018 political meme that gets referenced historically more than used daily[7][8]. ### Why did Trump's advisors write DO NOT CONGRATULATE in all capital letters? Advisors wanted the instruction impossible to miss, given concerns about Russia's 2016 US election interference and the Skripal nerve-agent poisoning in Britain, both of which made congratulating Putin politically risky[3]. ### What did John McCain say about Trump's call to Putin? Senator John McCain said an American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections and said Trump had insulted every Russian citizen denied a free and fair vote[2]. ### How did Trump respond to the leak? Trump was reported to be fuming and asking who had leaked the briefing, while chief of staff John Kelly also sought to identify the source; one senior White House official told CNN the leak was a fireable offense and likely illegal[5]. ### Did Trump defend the Putin call publicly? Yes, in tweets on March 21, 2018, he wrote that getting along with Russia and other countries was a good thing and said the Fake News Media wanted him to excoriate Putin[4]. ### Which news outlets covered DO NOT CONGRATULATE as a meme? The Daily Dot, Mashable and HuffPost ran meme round-ups during the week the story broke, and KYM catalogued the catchphrase afterward[7][8][10]. ### Had Obama ever congratulated Putin on an election win? Yes; Mashable noted that Barack Obama also congratulated Putin on his 2012 win, though Obama waited several days to do so[8]. ## References 1. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trumps-national-security-advisers-warned-him-not-to-congratulate-putin-he-did-it-anyway/2018/03/20/22738ebc-2c68-11e8-8ad6-fbc50284fce8_story.html]() 2. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin/index.html]() 3. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/20/politics/do-not-congratulate-trump-analysis/index.html]() 4. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/21/trump-putin-congratulations-election-warning-security-briefing]() 5. [https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/donald-trump-vladimir-putin-congratulations/index.html]() 6. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/do-not-congratulate]() 7. [https://www.dailydot.com/layer8/do-not-congratulate-trump-twitter-meme/]() 8. [https://mashable.com/2018/03/20/do-not-congratulate-meme/]() 9. [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/advisers-told-trump-not-congratulate-putin-he-did-anyway-n858651]() 10. [https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-do-not-congratulate-twitter_n_5ab1feb2e4b0decad0453c58]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/do-not-congratulate Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library