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Trump shares GIF of himself striking Hillary Clinton in the back with a golf ball

(Mic Smith | The Associated Press) Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, S.C., Monday, Dec. 7, 2015. Trump on Sunday retweeted a GIF that showed him hitting a golf ball that struck Hillary Clinton in the back.

President Donald Trump retweeted a meme on Sunday morning that showed him hitting Hillary Clinton in the back with a golf ball.

The animated GIF spliced together a clip of Trump swinging a golf club with footage of Clinton falling, apparently edited to appear as if a golf ball had struck her down.

The image was originally posted as a reply to the president by a Twitter user whose bio consists of pro-Trump, anti-Clinton hashtags.

“Donald Trump’s amazing golf swing .CrookedHillary,” the user wrote in the caption.

The retweet immediately drew hundreds of Trump’s critics and supporters into a familiar vortex of debate, with many criticizing the GIF for seeming to encourage violence and others defending the president.

“You’re a child. Beneath the dignity of your office. Grow up. Be a man,” the actor James Morrison replied to Trump.

Trump’s love of Twitter and his propensity to post controversial tweets - often very late at night or first thing in the morning - is well known. The golf-swing repost, however, was part of an unusual retweet spree in which Trump shared at least half a dozen tweets from other accounts that showed the president in a favorable light. Three were from an account called “Trumpism 5.0,” which included a train “wearing” a “Make America Great Again” hat.