Yo Adrian! Did you hear the one about the president facing impeachment?
U.S. President Donald Trump was viciously mocked — and vigorously applauded — on social media after posting a bizarre tweet that shows his head photoshopped onto fictional boxer Rocky Balboa‘s body.
Trump tweeted the image without any accompanying text on Wednesday, shortly before 11 a.m. The image appears to be a doctored image of actor Sylvester Stallone in the film Rocky III.
Trump occasionally retweets users who praise him or insert him into flattering images or videos. However, it’s unclear where he got the photoshopped image of Rocky, and what the tweet is supposed to mean.
“The delusion runs very deep,” one user tweeted in response to the photo.
“Delusion vs. Reality,” wrote another user, with side-by-side images of the doctored photo and an image of Trump on the golf course.
Trump’s base of supporters were quick to embrace the image of their beloved leader.
“True champion!” a Trump supporter wrote. “Only the truly stupid punch President Trump and don’t expect a counterpunch.”
Many critics were quick to point out the difference between Stallone’s chiselled physique and Trump’s more substantial presence.
The image appears to be a nod to Trump’s current battle with Congress, as the House of Representatives prepares for the next stage of its impeachment inquiry over the president’s alleged pressure campaign with Ukraine. Trump is accused of freezing nearly US$400 million in military aid to Ukraine while pushing the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to announce an investigation into Trump’s domestic political rival, Joe Biden.
Trump has stonewalled the investigation, blocked his aides from testifying and denounced the whole process as a “sham” and a “witch hunt.” He has also insisted that his actions were justified by a widely discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine was trying to sabotage Trump in the 2016 election.
The president has repeatedly characterized the showdown with Democrats as a fight.
“If this were a prizefight, they’d stop it!” he tweeted last week during a witness’ testimony.
Trump has tweeted doctored photos and videos in the past, usually when the image depicts him as a hero or his opponents as villains.
Last month, he posted a photoshopped image of himself giving a medal to a dog that helped kill the leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The medal ceremony depicted in the photo never happened, although Trump did honour the dog at the White House this week.
In 2017, Trump tweeted a video depicting himself clotheslining a person with the CNN logo superimposed on the person’s face. The original clip was taken from one of Trump’s appearances at a World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) match.
The president did not immediately tweet an explanation for the photo.