Photos of Donald Trump's Hollywood Star wearing a KKK hood are circulating on social media after the US president refused to condemn members of the Ku Klux Klan for their violent clashes with anti-fascism protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The billionaire's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is shown shrouded in a white pointed hood with eye slits, the signature costume worn by KKK wizard David Duke and his followers.

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Trump has come under fire from both Democrats and Republicans for refusing to publicly denounce the far-right and KKK for the violence in Charlottesville.

The president is known for his direct verbal attacks against people he disagrees with, including members of his own party. Trump's silence after Charlottesville spoke volumes, his critics say, and was widely condemned as a sign of support for white nationalists.

Almost a week after the clashes in Charlottesville, Trump said the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis and white supremacists were "repugnant" to American values.

But he struck a different tone during a press conference in Trump Tower the following day (14 August), when he drew a moral equivalency between white supremacists and anti-fascism protesters and said that the so-called 'alt-left' were just as much to blame for the violence as the alt-right.

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called Trump's remarks "embarrassing to our country and the millions of Americans who fought and died to defeat Nazism".

House Speaker Paul Ryan said there could be no "moral ambiguity" regarding the events in Charlottesville.

"We must be clear. White supremacy is repulsive. This bigotry is counter to all this country stands for," he wrote on Twitter.

Several high-profile business leaders resigned from White House advisory boards, outraged at the president's response. Kenneth Frazier, the CEO of Merck, one of the US' largest pharmaceutical companies, resigned from Trump's American Manufacturing Council, saying that all expressions of hatred and bigotry must be rejected.

Two other members of the business panel, Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank and Intel chief Brian Krzanich, also quit, angered by the president's refusal to denounce far-right extremists.