Trump tweets anti-Clinton meme as tensions flare over her memoir

The president retweeted a doctored video of him knocking Clinton over with a golf ball, as the former candidate’s election memoir reopened old wounds

President Trump on Sunday retweeted doctored footage that showed him hitting Hillary Clinton with a golf ball, knocking her over. In doing so he continued an enduring feud that was given new energy this week with the publication of Clinton’s campaign memoir, What Happened.

The gif, which uses old film of Clinton stumbling as she enters a plane and complements “Trump’s amazing golf swing #CrookedHillary”, came from an account, @Fuctupmind, which on Sunday also published a gif of a kitten falling asleep. Seven hours later, the account tweeted: “What happened?”

The president’s retweet drew condemnation reminiscent of the response to doctored footage he tweeted in July, which showed him attacking a man with a CNN logo for a head.

Many also noted that the presidential retweet came as the White House prepared for a solemn diplomatic occasion, Trump’s first appearance at the United Nations general assembly in New York. The president has derided the UN as “just a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time”.

Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, told ABC’s This Week: “It is distressing … to have a president that, frankly, will tweet and retweet things as juvenile as that. It doesn’t help, I think, in terms of his stature. It doesn’t help in terms of the stature of our whole country.”

The retweet was part of a series of morning messages which also referred to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, with whom the US is locked in an increasingly alarming nuclear standoff, as “Rocket Man”.

Trump also retweeted his own controversial messages sent in the aftermath of an explosion on a London tube train on Friday. In an interview broadcast on Sunday, British prime minister Theresa May repeated her criticism of the tweets when she told ABC: “I don’t think it’s helpful for anyone to speculate on what is an ongoing investigation.” The home secretary, Amber Rudd, told the BBC the tweets were “pure speculation, not based on intelligence”.

Clinton published her book on 2016, in which she calls Trump a “creep”, on Tuesday. Trump has since tweeted about his rival with evident delight.

On Wednesday, Trump tweeted: “Crooked Hillary Clinton blames everybody (and every thing) but herself for her election loss. She lost the debates and lost her direction!”

Referring to a description of his supporters used by Clinton during the campaign, he added: “The ‘deplorables’ came back to haunt Hillary. They expressed their feelings loud and clear. She spent big money but, in the end, had no game!”

Clinton shot back: “If you didn’t like that book, try this one – some good lessons in here about working together to solve problems.”

The former first lady, senator and secretary of state attached a photo of It Takes a Village, a picture book for children she published in 1996. “Happy to send a copy,” she wrote.

While accepting ultimate “responsibility for all” her campaign’s missteps in What Happened, Clinton discusses among other factors FBI director James Comey and his conduct of the investigation into her use of a private email server; Russian meddling in the election and the Obama administration’s reluctance to react forcefully; and the influence of Bernie Sanders’s primary challenge from the left.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders accused Clinton of pushing “false narratives” and said it was “sad that after Hillary Clinton ran one of the most negative campaigns in history, and lost, and the last chapter of her public life is going to be now defined by propping up book sales with false and reckless attacks”.

In an interview with NPR, Clinton said she will continue to speak out.

“I’m going to keep talking and trying to raise the questions that I hope Americans will take seriously, and that I hope the press will take seriously, because we’ve got a lot of choppy water ahead of us,” she said.