Washington: March 24, 2019

Following the Attorney General’s letter to Congress, the Democratic National Committee has updated its guidance to candidates. The leaked copy is set out in full below.

“To: Democratic candidates (and Bernie Sanders)

From: Campaign Committee

With the release of the summary of the Mueller Report by the Attorney General, these guidelines for candidates have been updated.

Importantly, provided there is not clear evidence of collusion, you are free to constantly praise any authoritarian foreign leader including the leader of the country that was for more than 70 years seen as the existential threat to the safety of the free world.

Nevertheless, I would urge caution to those of you who constantly refer in speeches to Scandinavian health systems and New Zealand gun laws reform. The evidence to date is that local electoral benefits are largely limited to praise of authoritarian leaders with nuclear weapons and younger girlfriends. Praise of liberal leaders overseeing policies promoting equality, safety and freedom from poverty is seen as un-American.

We confirm previous guidance that lying, ignoring relevant facts, casual racism, environmental damage and sexual harassment remain fine provided you respond “fake news” to any comments in the failing media.

We are still concerned on promoting policies with unrealistic financial modelling and assumptions. While helping billionaires worked as messaging for the Republicans, there is no evidence that policies aimed at saving the world from a climate catastrophe will get the support of undecided voters or Republican legislators.

And as always, we recommend against shooting anyone on Fifth Avenue”.

We were hoping to get a copy of the Trump campaign updated guidelines – but we understand that their offices were flooded in champagne this afternoon. We will update you soon.