Ex-Navy SEAL who claims to have killed bin Laden appears on neo-Nazi show

Former Navy SEAL Robert J. O’Neill, who has long claimed credit for killing Osama bin Laden, appeared recently on the video podcast of neo-Nazi commentator Stew Peters, where he helped promote a conspiracy theory that former Turning Point USA chief executive Charlie Kirk was killed by an explosive device rather than a gunshot.

The May 12 episode, titled “SEAL Team 6 Exposes Charlie Kirk Was BLOWN UP!” featured Peters prodding O’Neill through a series of increasingly outlandish claims about Kirk’s murder. O’Neill, presenting himself as someone with expertise in explosives, said he quickly concluded that Kirk had not been shot.

“As soon as I saw the blood coming out of his neck, that was off, that was wrong, that was not a bullet,” O’Neill told Peters.

O’Neill pointed to the movement of Kirk’s shirt as supposed evidence.

“Your shirt doesn't move like that. His shirt was moved by a force. What was it?” O’Neill said.

He also said he immediately believed Kirk’s murder was a “false flag” before Peters pushed him to speculate about whether an explosive could have been hidden inside a lavalier microphone battery pack:

PETERS: Let me just ask you this. In your training and experience with explosives, how easy would it be to rig, say, a battery pack of a lavalier microphone with a small shape charge or a remotely detonated explosive?

O’NEILL: How easy would it be to do that? A piece of cake. I mean, if you have the time, you could put explosives pretty much anywhere. I mean, that's easy. Yeah, I mean, that's doable. You could. I know where you're going with this. You’d be surprised when you start working with stuff like Comp B and C-4.

PETERS: Well, if you know where I'm going with this, then just, you know, I mean, you're here, you're the guest, I want people to hear from you. So if you know where I’m going let’s just go with it.

O’NEILL: Well I've seen the shaped charge device on his lapel. And that's what people have said. And I'm not saying that's what that is, but it does fit the profile. And again, I don't know what's true and I wasn't there and I didn't see it. I'm just saying from experience what I think, potentially. And I'm listening to other people. I mean, is it true that they paved over that site too? That says that they're trying to get rid of fragments, so that says explosion.

Utah authorities who investigated the Kirk assassination say he was shot by a 22-year-old gunman who was perched on a nearby roof and fired a single shot from a vintage bolt-action rifle. Despite authorities finding the gun in a wooded area near the crime scene and the alleged shooter turning himself in days after the killing, conspiracy theorists like O’Neill and Peters have gone off on increasingly more absurd tangents to imply or outright claim the situation was not as it seemed.

Peters makes no effort to hide his racist and antisemitic beliefs these days. As O’Neill spun out the theory, Peters sat between a large screen and a pile of Blu-rays promoting his most recent pro-Nazi film, “Occupied.”

The pseudo-documentary portrays Adolf Hitler as a “misunderstood and falsely maligned figure” and “a real warrior that fought with them [Jewish people] direct.” The film also recycles “dancing Israelis” myths from the 9/11 conspiracy ecosystem and praises deceased American Nazi Party leader George Lincoln Rockwell and antisemitic rapper Ye, formerly known as Kanye West. It ends with a fabricated quote attributed to Hitler claiming the world would eventually view him as righteous.

Peters entered far-right media around 2020 after failed careers as a rapper and bail bondsman. Over the years, his rhetoric has become increasingly violent and hateful, particularly toward Indian, Jewish, and LGBTQ+ people.

He has described Hitler as a “hero,” called for the mass expulsion of Jews from the United States, described Indians as “parasitic people,” and praised the Nazi campaign of book burnings. Last year, Peters launched an antisemitic cryptocurrency meme coin whose name is a reference to being “Jew proof.”

“YES, we should have backed Hitler,” Peters wrote on X in August.

Peters has also praised bin Laden as “based.” In one 2024 X post, he mocked O’Neill’s criticism of conspiracy theories surrounding bin Laden’s death.

O’Neill is far from the first member of US special forces or the military more broadly to embrace conspiracy theories or become involved in extremist movements. The phenomenon has been repeatedly highlighted by anti-hate watchdogs in years past. 

Bo Gritz, a former member of the Army Green Berets, was involved in multiple high-profile incidents in the 1980s and ‘90s tied to the militia and white supremacist movements

In 2006, the Southern Poverty Law Center exposed an active-duty Navy SEAL as a member of the neo-Nazi group National Alliance and also detailed numerous other cases in which military personnel were involved in racist and antisemitic extremism. 

Earlier this year, a jury in New Mexico convicted a former Navy SEAL who had neo-Nazi beliefs on federal charges that he planned to shoot explosives at police officers during a “No Kings” rally. 

Last month, The Informant revealed that a former Navy SEAL, Corey Scott, had recently become the newest member of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front, an organization dedicated to the downfall of the United States. 

O’Neill served for more than 16 years as a Navy SEAL, deploying to the Balkans and then to Iraq and Afghanistan after 9/11. During his military career, he received numerous medals of valor and has claimed involvement in rescue operations that later inspired the films Captain Phillips and Lone Survivor.

Most famously, O’Neill has claimed that he was the SEAL Team 6 member who killed Osama bin Laden during the May 2011 raid known as Operation Neptune Spear.

O’Neill began taking credit as the soldier who killed bin Laden in 2013. His claim has been disputed by several former SEAL Team 6 members, who accused him in books and media interviews of embellishing his role in the raid.  According to multiple SEALs, O’Neill shot bin Laden’s after he was already dead, firing close-range rounds into the body and splitting his head in what SEALs have called “canoeing.”

A former SEAL Team 6 commander has also questioned O’Neill’s claims about his involvement in rescue operations tied to Richard Phillips and Marcus Luttrell.

The criticism has done little to slow O’Neill’s post-military career. He has worked as a Fox News contributor, published a bestselling book, and built a lucrative speaking business. His listed booking fees range from $20,000 to $30,000 for virtual events and $50,000 to $100,00 for live appearances.

In March, Team USA baseball manager Mark DeRosa invited O’Neill to give the players, some of the best-known in the world, a locker room pep talk ahead of a World Baseball Classic quarterfinal game against Canada. DeRosa defended the decision after receiving some criticism from fans, saying he wanted to pay respect to the military. The team went on to lose against Team Venezuela in the tournament final a few days later.

O’Neill also sells autographed memorabilia, including a bin Laden action figure, helmets decorated with “Make America Great Again,” 9/11, or bin Laden imagery and PSA-graded trading cards featuring Twin Towers images or swatches of O’Neill’s old military uniform.

O’Neill has spent the past decade circulating through right-wing and mainstream media. He has appeared on CNN, 60 Minutes, InfoWars, Newsmax, and numerous military podcasts. He also gave interviews in 2021 and 2022 for Turning Point USA’s YouTube channel and its now-defunct podcast, The Spillover.

In the weeks following the murder of Kirk, O’Neill made the media rounds, trading stories about Navy SEAL operations for armchair murder investigation commentary. He appeared on Piers Morgan Uncensored, the Kim Iverson Show, and The Redacted Podcast, where he similarly fixated on the movement of Kirk’s white t-shirt as he was shot with a high-velocity bullet. 

During O’Neill’s interview with Iverson, the two discussed their theories on why they believe Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, is a “patsy.”

"A single shooter would be nice, but it also would have been nice in Dallas when Kennedy got shot," O’Neill said.

Iverson suggested, “it’s not the MO of these trans leftist shooters” and “they usually shoot a lot of people,” echoing the false and dangerous narratives that Robsinson, a cisgender man, is transgender and that most mass shootings in the U.S. are carried out by transgender individuals.

O’Neill enthusiastically agreed then said, “And I was thinking, you know, with a crowd that big too. If you're looking to make a statement, you start pumping bullets into the crowd. Not to give anyone ideas.”

O’Neill’s years as a right-wing commentator have also included anti-LGBTQ bigotry, COVID conspiracies, and anti-Muslim rhetoric.

In August 2023, O’Neill was arrested in Frisco, Texas after allegedly assaulting a hotel security guard and calling him the N-word while intoxicated. 

The following year, O’Neill drew attention again after telling Gen-Z liberal commentator Harry Sisson that he and other male Democratic influencers would “be my concubines” if “there was no social media.” 

O’Neill doubled down in a video.

“I responded that, uh, ‘you’re not men, you’re boys and you’d be my concubines,’ and what I meant by that is yeah you would be.” O’Neill continued, “You don’t know how to fight and I could basically do what I want with you. Trust me guys. Harry Sisson couldn’t do a goddamn thing and he’d be running for guys like me to save him so basically saying ‘concubine’ means a slave.”

O’Neill  drew even more negative attention in recent years when he teamed up with the Armed Forces Brewing Company as a brand ambassador, partial shareholder, and board director while the military-themed brewery was in the midst of moving its headquarters to Norfolk, Virginia, only miles from Naval Station Norfolk.

The company faced significant pushback from members of the local community, particularly over O’Neill and the brewery's use of misogynistic and anti-LGBTQ advertising to promote their business. Armed Forces Brewing Company shuttered only 13 months after their 2024 opening following numerous vendors suing for nonpayment and former employees reporting lack of pay, according to WHRO Public Media. The outlet also found that Armed Forces Brewing was already struggling financially and operating in the negative before their Norfolk move.

Last month, Armed Forces Brewing filed a $50 million lawsuit in Norfolk Circuit Court against an anonymous Reddit user, an independent journalist, a rival beer company, and several Norfolk residents for allegedly orchestrating a conspiracy to destroy the company’s reputation.