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| - Did Rep. Dan Crenshaw share a post on X that included inflammatory language boasting of "over 300 confirmed kills," as an image on the platform suggested? No, that's not true: The quote is known colloquially as the "Navy Seal Copypasta," a phrase used to mock aggressive rhetoric online. The supposed screenshot of Crenshaw's post shows signs of manipulation, including its use of outdated "Retweet" and "Quote Tweet" phrases that are no longer used on X after it was rebranded from Twitter.
The claim appeared in a post on X on December 19, 2024 (archived here). It featured a screenshot made to look like a post shared by Crenshaw, a Republican from Texas, the day prior. A caption with the post read:
Dan needs to chilllllll
This is how the post appeared on X at the time of writing:
(Source: X screenshot taken Thu Dec 19 12:19:53 2024 UTC)
Quote is example of copypasta
The post includes copypasta, which is a block quote social media users copy from another page, paste and spread without revising them or verifying their authenticity. The quote falsely attributed to Crenshaw is an example of copypasta sometimes used to mock belligerent social media debaters.
Know Your Meme, a pop culture website that documents various internet trends, refers to this quote as the "Navy Seal Copypasta." The website writes:
The copypasta originally started out on a 4chan military and weapons enthusiast imageboard sometime in 2010. The earliest archived version is from November 11th of that year ...
It is generally used sarcastically as a parody of hypermasculinity and overly aggressive rhetoric on the internet. It has, however, vaulted to international headlines a few times.
A Google keyword search of the quote (archived here) returned dozens of versions of similar phrasing shared across social media platforms and also falsely attributed to various public figures. It was even included in a Federal Communications Commission filing in 2017 (archived here) and recirculated again after Crenshaw published (archived here) unrelated posts in which he referred to anonymous critics as "little bitches" and cowards on X on December 18, 2024.
No record of supposed quote on Crenshaw's X profile
Lead Stories found no record of the "300 confirmed kills"-type copypasta in a post shared by Crenshaw on December 18, 2024, nor on posts current as of this publication (archived here).
Similarly, an advanced search of the entire phrase conducted on December 18, 2024, on Crenshaw's profile did not return any results (archived here).
Lead Stories also searched the internet archive database Wayback Machine for posts published by Crenshaw, but none were saved on December 18, 2024.
Supposed screenshot gives away copypasta origins
After Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, he rebranded it as X. Part of the rebranding was to replace the "Retweet" and "Quote Tweet" options with the phrases "Repost" and "Quote."
Below are two screenshots of a genuine post published by Crenshaw on December 18, 2024 (archived here), the left from an iPhone and the right from a laptop. Both devices had the platform in the dark mode setting similar to the supposed screenshot at the focus of this debunk.
(Source: Lead Stories compilation of X screenshots taken Thu Dec 19 18:51:45 2025 UTC)
Both screenshots show the use of the quote, repost, like, save and share icons.
By comparison, the fake post still shows the outdated "Retweets" and "Quote Tweets" options, as shown below:
(Source: X screenshot taken Thu Dec 19 23:29:05 2025 UTC)
Lead Stories contacted Crenshaw's press secretary, Ross Tullis, by email to check the authenticity of the post attributed to Crenshaw. We will update this article, as relevant, when he responds.
Read more
Other Lead Stories political debunks can be read here.
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