Trump shares Robert O’Neill’s post saying Afghans would kill a ‘witch’ for having coffee machine

Washington, DC: President Donald Trump has thrown his support behind a controversial claim by former Navy SEAL Team 6 member Robert J O’Neill, who said Afghans would believe a coffee machine was “witchcraft” and would “chop your head off” if they saw one.

Trump shared O’Neill’s post on Truth Social over the weekend, backing the remark at a politically charged moment as two violent incidents involving Afghan nationals dominate national headlines.

Trump reposts Robert O’Neill’s claim amid fallout from DC troop shooting

O’Neill, the SEAL who has publicly said he fired the shot that killed Osama bin Laden, posted the remark to X on Friday. Trump shared the post on Saturday, writing no additional commentary but giving O’Neill’s words a wide presidential boost.

“If you’ve never been to Afghanistan, you wouldn’t understand. If you showed these people a Nespresso machine and gave them free coffee, they would assume you were a witch and chop your head off… But let’s bring ’em in!” his post read.

Trump’s post came just days after the ambush-style shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DC, by an Afghan national admitted under Joe Biden’s Operation Allies Welcome. The shooting killed 20-year-old Specialist Sarah Beckstrom and left 24-year-old Staff Sgt Andrew Wolfe fighting for his life.

“She was savagely attacked. She’s dead. She’s not with us,” Trump said on Thanksgiving, calling Beckstrom “outstanding in every single way, in every department.” He vowed that the suspect would “pay a very steep price.”

Operation Allies Welcome resurfaces as Trump halts Afghan immigration

The suspected DC shooter, 29-year-old Rahmanullah Lakanwal, was resettled in the US as part of Biden’s massive Afghan relocation effort following the 2021 withdrawal. The program resettled about 85,000 Afghans across the United States.

In the wake of the attack, Trump announced that his administration was halting all immigration requests from Afghanistan, citing urgent national security concerns. The president also ordered a “full-scale, rigorous re-examination” of green card holders from 19 “countries of concern,” including Afghanistan, Haiti, Iran, and Venezuela.

A senior Trump official said the review is intended to “restore order to a system that has been dangerously mismanaged.”

Another Afghan migrant arrested in Texas for alleged bomb threat

Trump’s amplification of O’Neill’s post came on the same day another Afghan national entered the headlines. Mohammad Dawood Alokozay was arrested earlier in the week in Texas after allegedly posting a TikTok video in which he claimed he was building a bomb and intended to target residents in the Fort Worth area.

Alokozay was charged with making a terroristic threat and was taken into custody by state authorities and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. ICE later issued a detainer. DHS records show Alokozay was admitted to the US as a lawful permanent resident in 2022.