SEAL who killed bin Laden predicts military coup in Iran

(NewsNation) — The U.S. Navy SEAL who claims to be the sole individual to kill Osama bin Laden believes the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps may stage a “nonviolent coup” to oust Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

“It looks like they managed to put a chokehold on the Ayatollah (Ali Khamenei),” said Robert J. O'Neill. “He's in hiding, which tells me that they're talking back door with a lot of the Iranian military, and they don't like being a part of the theocracy. So they're going to do some sort of a nonviolent coup. They're going to get rid of the ayatollah, and I think it's going to be peaceful.”

The normally outspoken Khamenei has been silent since Monday, avoiding social media and television appearances.

O'Neill said President Donald Trump is trying to bring peace to the region with strikes on Iranian nuclear assets.

“Trump wants the Gaza Strip to be a nice vacation spot,” said O'Neill. “He wants Iran to be the center of trade. That's all he's trying to do. I mean, if we wanted to destroy pretty much every country we could, but we're not doing that. That's not the United States way.”

Trump on Wednesday rejected an early intelligence assessment that U.S. strikes inflicted only a marginal setback on Iran's nuclear program, insisting that his country's spies did not have the full picture.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other military officials plan to hold a Thursday morning news conference to respond, according to Trump, who said in a post on social media Wednesday evening that the officials would speak “in order to fight for the Dignity of our Great American Pilots. These Patriots were very upset!”

He said the news conference “will prove both interesting and irrefutable.”