US President Donald Trump shared a bizarre and controversial meme on Twitter on Thursday (24 August) that showed his smiling, full-colour face gradually eclipsing a grim, black and white photo of former President Barack Obama. The Internet, in response, furiously roasted Trump for sharing the post saying it was "embarrassing" for a president to retweet "such a ridiculous meme."

Trump retweeted the image Thursday morning amid a slew of typo-laden tweets blasting the media, Congress and former intelligence director James Clapper.

The meme was originally shared by YouTube personality Jerry Travone who tweeted the photo to the president. Travone previously shared a controversial anti-Semitic tweet the previous weekend.

"The Best Eclipse Ever!" the caption on the meme read.

"I thought I was dreaming lol, and the president took time out his extremely busy day to retweet my picture and it's such an honor," Travone told NBC later via direct message on Twitter.

"I got tired of hearing people say how our president hasn't accomplished anything and I knew that wasn't true at all, so I wanted to express what myself and millions of Americans already knew and that was our president is a once in a lifetime leader and I told many people during the election that I would crawl over broken glass to cast my vote for Donald J Trump."

The retweeted post came after the historic total solar eclipse swept across parts of the US on Monday. Amid the spectacle and awe surrounding the celestial event, Trump also sparked another deluge of jokes after staring directly at the sun without any protective eye wear while watching the eclipse from the White House with first lady Melania Trump and their son Barron.

Meanwhile, Twitter immediately slammed Trump's decision to retweet the anti-Obama eclipse meme saying "you are the sitting president, not a jealous teen." Others chose to fight back, meme for meme.

One Twitter user wrote: "Trump retweeting eclipse meme where he is 'eclipsing' Obama shows the depth of his psychosis."

Another person shot back: "Can you be anymore obsessed with Pres Obama? You will never be on his level. He will always be better than you in every way. Get over it."

Many people also pointed out that, according to the meme, if Trump is the moon, then the eclipse is just temporary and he will be on his way out soon.

"The great thing is an eclipse doesn't last long and occurrences are rare," one person wrote while another added: "The orange man will be gone soon."

Trump Obama
Trump shared an anti-Obama meme on Twitter and got furiously roasted for it. Robyn Beck/AFP