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1. Stew Peters is a far-right conspiracy theorist, radio show host, Christian nationalist and prolific antisemite.
Peters rose from obscurity to national prominence in 2022, thanks in large part to the success of several conspiratorial documentaries he released that year, most notably the anti-vaccine film “Died Suddenly.” Since then, Peters has emerged as one of the most influential right-wing conspiracy theorists in the United States, gaining public notoriety for his hate-filled tirades and repeated calls for various public figures to be tried for “treason” and executed.
After working as a bounty hunter in Minnesota for several years, Peters launched his right-wing media career in August 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. He went on to form his own digital media company, the Stew Peters Network, in 2022. The network features shows hosted by a range of right-wing conspiracy theorists, including former California congressional candidate and QAnon supporter DeAnna Lorraine, former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Kandiss Taylor and Paul Harrell, a former writer and radio show host for the far-right news site National File.
Peters has amassed a large online following despite being relatively new to the far-right media scene. He has more than 1.6 million combined followers across his various social media accounts, and his broadcasts average between 40,000 and 70,000 views on Rumble.
While Peters is best known for promoting antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and vaccines, he also peddles conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, transhumanism and flat Earth. Though he has promoted QAnon-adjacent conspiracy theories about child sex trafficking and pedophilia, he has also been critical of QAnon in the past, frequently calling the movement a “psyop.”
Peters frequently attempts to shield his hatred for Jews, the LGBTQ+ community and other marginalized groups under the guise of his Christian faith, repeatedly expressing that Christian Americans are under “attack” and advocating for the U.S. to become a Christian nation. As Peters said during his January 29, 2024, broadcast: “Our First Amendment is being torn to shreds right in front of our very eyes, all in the name of the secular foreign nation state of Israel 6,000 miles away and its global legion of Jews who, whether secular or religious in nature, doesn't matter, have no problem working together to subvert the Western Christian world.”
2. Peters regularly promotes antisemitic, white supremacist and anti-LGBTQ+ beliefs. He has also shared Holocaust denial propaganda.
While Peters has long promoted antisemitic tropes on his show and social media, his rhetoric has become more explicit and incendiary in the wake of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack on Israel. Rather than shroud his remarks in bizarre conspiracy theories about the Rothschild family or make veiled, coded references to “Zionists” and “globalists,” Peters has dispensed with euphemisms, directly naming and blaming “the Jews” for everything he believes is wrong with society.
For example, during his January 25, 2024, broadcast, Peters remarked: “We don’t have any representation in Washington [DC]. We have a bunch of people that are sold out to Jews… literally that’s what we have. Nobody can argue that. It’s not antisemitic to say that; it’s freaking fact...Every institution in this country is led by somebody who claims to be a Jew. Are they practicing Jews? No, of course they’re not. They hide behind the Jew label so that they can get people like Elon Musk to kick me off of X for saying that they’re a Jew.”
Peters frequently rants about the “Jewish lobby/mafia” and Talmud on social media, claiming it promotes “sick gender ideology” and condones pedophilia. He also promoted the antisemitic, World War II revisionist film “Europa: The Last Battle” in a January 17, 2024, tweet, calling it “one of the most important films you can watch to understand what’s going on in the world today.”
Peters also frequently shares Holocaust denial propaganda. “The gas chambers, the crematoriums, so often discussed—they were destroyed at the end of World War II if they were ever there in the first place,” Peters remarked during his January 23, 2024, show.
“This really does beg the question, we have to ask, has the overall 6 million Holocaust deaths figure been adjusted to reflect the Auschwitz revelations?”
Peters’s anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry often converges with his antisemitism—he has frequently accused “Zionists” (i.e., Jews) of promoting the so-called LGBTQ+ “agenda” and “transgenderism” in order to abuse and “groom” children. During his December 19, 2023, broadcast, Peters alleged the “Zionist controlled media” is hurting children by promoting homosexuality and encouraging the bombing of kids in the Middle East. “They are after the lives of your children,” he said.
Peters has also repeatedly promoted the false, malicious narrative that LGBTQ+ people are pedophiles who are “grooming” children.
During an October 2022, broadcast, Peters attacked East Carolina University’s LGBTQ+ Health Clinic, claiming the center was a “transgender training program” that was “grooming” children and engaging in “child mutilation.”
In line with this rhetoric, Peters will sometimes feature guests that promote anti-LGBTQ+ hate and conspiracy theories on his show. During a July 2022 broadcast, Peters and conspiracy theorist Dr. Stella Immanuel speculated that monkeypox was being transmitted to children through pedophilia. “If we have two children that are with people that are living the gay lifestyle, I would want to investigate [them] for sexual molestation,” Immanuel told Peters.
In addition to spreading anti-LGBTQ+ hate, Peters frequently espouses racist and white supremacist tropes, including Replacement theory. During a March 2022 show, Peters told U.S. Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX) that “the Great Replacement is real” and urged him to acknowledge that the Democratic Party “embraces racism against white people.”
During a September 2022 broadcast, Peters remarked, “Minute by minute, the American people are being replaced, specifically White American people…Most Americans still have absolutely no idea just how unprecedented the scale of this foreign takeover is. Everything in America is being engineered to get our birth rates as low as possible.”
3. Peters created the viral anti-COVID-19 vaccination film, “Died Suddenly.”
Released on November 21, 2022, “Died Suddenly” promotes the false claim that COVID-19 vaccines cause healthy individuals to develop deadly blood clots. The film suggests this is proof that “global elites” are using the vaccines to depopulate the planet as part of a broader conspiracy to establish a global totalitarian regime. This claim has been promoted by conspiracy theorists since the virus first emerged in 2020. “Died Suddenly,” which has been viewed more than 18.3 million times on Rumble and Bitchute, shows clips of young people collapsing and suffering seizures, implying that they died from the COVID-19 vaccine. However, some of the individuals shown in these clips are still alive.
Despite being repeatedly debunked by fact checkers and medical experts, the claims promoted in “Died Suddenly” have gained a significant foothold. On X, formerly known as Twitter, the hashtag #DiedSuddenly has emerged as a rallying cry for anti-vaccine activists and conspiracy theorists who use it to promote baseless claims that the deaths and illnesses of various individuals were caused by the COVID-19 vaccine.
Data compiled by the ADL Center on Extremism shows that #DiedSuddenly was mentioned over 2.4 million times between November 21, 2022, and December 31, 2023, with posts mentioning the hashtag receiving more than 4.9 million likes and 2.5 million retweets. The hashtag was trending on X following Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin’s collapse on January 2, 2023. Conspiracy theorists, including Peters, have alleged that Hamlin’s collapse was caused by the COVID-19 vaccine and that he has since been replaced by a “body double.”
“Died Suddenly” was the second anti-vaccine documentary Peters released in 2022. In April, Peters released “Watch the Water,” which has accumulated more than 13 million views on Rumble. The film, which features Bryan Ardis, a former chiropractor and prominent COVID-19 conspiracy theorist, promotes the theory that COVID-19 is derived from snake venom and is being spread through drinking water. Ardis claims that the “elites” are doing this to inject us with “Satan’s DNA.” Unlike “Died Suddenly,” “Watch the Water” was mostly a flop, with many conspiracy theorists and prominent QAnon influencers dismissing the snake venom theory.
Peters released a third anti-vaccination documentary, “Final Days,” on May 30, 2023. The film, which features Pfizer “whistleblower” Karen Kingston, posits that COVID-19 vaccines are “bioweapons” created by the “global elites” to permanently alter human beings, claiming they contain RNA-modifying “transhumanist” nanotechnology. These claims—which date back to the early days of the pandemic—have been repeatedly debunked by scientists and health officials.
4. Various political figures and elected officials have appeared on his show.
Peters has hosted a wide range of political figures and elected officials on his show, including Arizona state senator Wendy Rogers; failed Arizona gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake (who is now running for the U.S. Senate); former Idaho Lt. Governor Janice McGeachin; U.S. Representative Paul Gosar (R-AZ); U.S. Representative Pete Sessions (R-TX); Roger Stone; and Trump attorney Christina Bobb. These figures lend Peters credibility, enabling him to widen his audience and normalize his bigoted, conspiratorial beliefs. During an interview with Kari Lake on February 7, 2023, Peters suggested that “conservative Christians” are being provoked into “violence or bloodshed,” lamenting that Critical Race Theory and transgender people pose threats to children. Lake agreed, adding, “I don’t know how much longer the people can take it.”
During an interview with Janice McGeachin in March 2022, Peters suggested that Idaho Governor Brad Little was involved in child trafficking, questioning his failure to speak out about the Baby Cyrus case. “Is Governor Little complicit in a child trafficking ring. I don't know. Is he profiteering from this? I don't know, but he's certainly not doing anything. Not a thing to combat it. He hasn't mentioned it at all,” Peters said.
He also spoke at a campaign rally for McGeachin later that spring, during which he claimed political enemies (“RINOs,” or “Republicans in Name Only,” and Democrats) were “possessed by demons” and wanted to “rape our children.”
5. Peters has frequently platformed white supremacists and antisemites on his show.
Since the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel, Peters has hosted a slew of well-known white supremacists and antisemites on his show, including Goyim Defense League (GDL) leader Jon Minadeo, Nick Fuentes, Vincent James, Lucas Gage, James Edwards, Brother Nathanael and Mark Collett. Given Peters’s massive—and growing—audience, it’s possible these interviews could introduce Peters’s fans to more extreme figures and beliefs. For example, Minadeo took the opportunity to plug his website during his January 29, 2024, interview with Peters, and GDL members tuning into the broadcast promoted the group’s content in the live chat and comments on Rumble.
These recent interviews have allowed Peters to double down on his antisemitism. There was a notable shift following his January 18, 2024, interview with Brother Nathanael, who scolded him for using veiled language about “Zionists,” saying: “The issue is Jews. If we keep on saying the word Zionists exclusive of Jews, the Jews love that... the problem is Jews.” Since then, Peters has largely abandoned coded references to “Zionists” and “globalists” in favor of explicitly attacking Jews.
Hosting white supremacists was already a longstanding tradition for Peters. In 2021, he spoke to VDARE founder Peter Brimelow and Neil Kumar, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2022. During a December 2021 interview with Brimelow, Peters praised VDARE for publishing “brilliant writers and thinkers that conservative outlets are too cowardly to give a platform.”
Peters also has ties to the white supremacist Groyper community. In February 2022, Peters spoke at the third annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC III), a conference hosted by white supremacist Nick Fuentes. During his speech, Peters asked the crowd why Dr. Anthony Fauci wasn't “hanging by the end of a noose somewhere?” Fuentes has been on Peters’s show several times.
Dalton Clodfelter, a Groyper who regularly promotes antisemitic tropes and Holocaust denial, also hosted a show on the Stew Peters Network called “The Right Dissident” from July 2022 to January 2023.
“I'm not a Holocaust denier. I think that the story of the Holocaust is over blown, and I think the numbers are inflated,” Clodfelter said during a December 2022 broadcast, which is still available on the Stew Peters Network’s Rumble account.
“I don't think that it happened the way that that the mainstream narrative wants you to think it happened. I also think there's a lot of post-war propaganda that was pushed out in order to form that narrative that everyone follows today... Holocaust museums have changed the numbers of Jews that were killed there upwards of 10 times.”
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