Federal agents arrested a Los Angeles man on three criminal counts after he allegedly spent months posting social media videos calling for President Trump's execution, the latest in a pattern of escalating threats against the president and his inner circle.
Benjamin Azariah Southworth, a 40-year-old podcaster, was taken into custody at his Los Angeles home on September 3 after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges of threatening to kill the president, cyberstalking, and making harassing telephone calls in interstate communications. Just the News reported that FBI Director Kash Patel announced the arrest Thursday, and Southworth was expected to appear in a Los Angeles courtroom later that day.
The indictment stems from conduct the Justice Department says stretched from January to May 2026. Southworth allegedly used social media accounts to publicly express hatred toward Trump and the president's supporters, and left a series of abusive messages online and over voicemail targeting Trump's personal attorney Jay Sekulow and Sekulow's family.
If convicted on all three counts, Southworth faces a combined statutory maximum of twelve years in federal prison, five years for threatening the president, five years for cyberstalking, and two years for telephonic harassment.
The allegations go well beyond vague online hostility. The New York Post reported that Southworth posted videos on Instagram and YouTube explicitly stating "Kill Donald Trump" on multiple occasions during the January-to-May window. In one video, court documents show Southworth declared:
"Kill Donald Trump. Kill that motherf***** pedophile in the White House. Kill that traitor of the United States Constitution."
Southworth also allegedly posted a video depicting himself raising a knife to Trump's head in the White House Oval Office and sold "Kill Donald Trump" stickers on his website. The conduct was not limited to online rhetoric aimed at the president. Southworth allegedly doxxed Sekulow's family, posting the attorney's home address and family phone numbers, and made at least 13 harassing calls to Sekulow and his relatives.
Fox News identified Southworth as a former Christian reality TV host and LGBT podcaster. Court documents cited by Fox News included another statement from Southworth: "I have been vocal in calling for the execution of Donald Trump... Kill Donald Trump."
The threats were not ambiguous. They were not metaphorical. They named the president, called for his death repeatedly, and, in the case of Sekulow, extended to a private citizen's family members through direct harassment.
Attorney General Todd Blanche framed the arrest as part of a broader federal posture toward threats against the president. Blanche said in a statement:
"As threats against President Trump's life escalate, the Department of Justice will respond with the full force of the law. We will hold perpetrators of violent threats accountable, and anyone who makes these threats online will not be allowed to hide behind their screens."
That language, "as threats escalate", suggests the Justice Department views Southworth's case as part of a wider trend, not an isolated incident. Threats against Trump and his family have been a persistent concern throughout his presidency. Secret Service leadership changes have followed intensifying security risks, and foreign actors have added to the threat environment.
FBI Director Patel described the alleged threats as "as vile as they are criminal," adding that "those responsible will be met by this FBI and law enforcement."
First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, who is handling the prosecution, put the matter bluntly: "There is zero tolerance for political violence, especially for threats directed at the President. Threatening an elected official with violence is a serious offense, and you will be arrested and charged as Mr. Southworth found out this morning."
One detail that stands out from the indictment timeline is how long the alleged conduct persisted. The Justice Department says Southworth posted threatening content from January through May 2026, a five-month stretch during which videos calling for the president's death allegedly sat on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
The indictment does not explain what, if anything, those platforms did to flag or remove the content during that window. It is not clear whether social media companies reported Southworth's posts to law enforcement or whether the FBI discovered them independently. Foreign propaganda calling for harm against Trump family members has circulated on some of the same platforms, raising persistent questions about how seriously Big Tech treats threats against this particular president.
Southworth allegedly did not limit himself to public posts. The cyberstalking charge and the telephonic harassment charge point to a campaign that moved from social media into direct contact with a private citizen's family. Posting Sekulow's home address and family phone numbers, then placing at least 13 harassing calls, crosses the line from online provocation into targeted intimidation.
The case also arrives against a backdrop of public officials making inflammatory remarks about Trump with little consequence, a climate that critics argue normalizes hostility toward the president and those around him.
Southworth was expected to make his initial court appearance in Los Angeles on Thursday. No defense attorney has been publicly identified, and no statement from Southworth or his representatives has surfaced.
The specific federal district court handling the case has not been named in public filings released so far. The charges are straightforward federal offenses, threatening the president is codified under federal law and carries a five-year maximum, while cyberstalking and interstate telephonic harassment carry their own separate penalties.
Southworth's background adds an unusual dimension. He was previously known as a Christian reality television personality before becoming an LGBT podcaster, a trajectory that drew media attention to the case. But his public profile does not change the legal exposure. The indictment rests on specific, documented conduct: videos, social media posts, a website selling merchandise calling for the president's death, doxxing a lawyer's family, and over a dozen harassing phone calls.
Threats against a sitting president are among the most aggressively prosecuted federal crimes, and for good reason. The broader security environment around Trump has demanded heightened vigilance from federal law enforcement, and the Justice Department under Blanche has signaled it intends to treat every credible threat as a criminal matter, not a free-speech exercise.
When someone spends five months posting videos calling for the president's death, sells stickers promoting it, and personally harasses a private attorney's family, the law has a word for that, and it is not "speech."
