A Republican write-in candidate for Congress in Florida posted a nearly seven-minute video on X calling President Donald Trump "the Antichrist" and declaring that he "must be killed", prompting swift condemnation from the U.S. Marine Corps, the acting Navy secretary, and the Secret Service.
William Upham, a former Marine officer and self-described prosecutor running for Florida's 5th Congressional District, delivered the remarks while citing Bible passages and invoking his military oath to defend the Constitution "against all enemies, foreign and domestic." The video, first reported by Fox News Digital, drew immediate backlash from military leadership and federal law enforcement.
The Marine Corps disclosed that Upham was medically discharged on May 30, 2025. He is no longer on active duty. But that did not stop him from wrapping his remarks in the language of service and Scripture, a combination that makes the video all the more reckless given the real-world threats this president has already faced.
In the video posted to his X account, @uphamforflorida, Upham left no room for ambiguity. He stated flatly:
"There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is the Antichrist. He is a false Messiah, and he is your enemy, and he must be killed."
He went further, declaring that "President Trump is the Antichrist. And he will be killed and sent to hell. God will prevail against evil." He also said, "We are led by a president who is the enemy of God."
Upham framed his candidacy as a mission to restore bipartisanship, return power to the working class, and "fix our broken political system." On his X profile, he describes himself as a prosecutor. The Washington Examiner reported that Upham previously worked as a prosecutor in Pensacola and Jacksonville.
Whatever his professional credentials, nothing in his background justifies the kind of language he used, language that, if spoken by anyone without a campaign website, would almost certainly invite an immediate knock on the door from federal agents.
The Marine Corps responded on X, condemning Upham's statements in unequivocal terms:
"The Marine Corps is aware of the disturbing statements made by William Upham. The comments made by Upham are a direct violation of the oath he swore to uphold and are not in keeping with the service's values."
Acting Navy Secretary Hung Cao followed with his own post on X: "Unacceptable. William Upham is no longer a Marine and does not represent our values or ethos."
The speed of the military's response matters. In a climate where threats against public officials are taken with increasing seriousness, and where actual assassination attempts against the president have already occurred, the Marine Corps and Navy clearly wanted no association with Upham's words.
The New York Post reported that Upham appeared to be wearing his Marine uniform in the video, despite having already been medically discharged. That detail adds another layer to the episode: a man who no longer serves, wearing the uniform of the service that has publicly disowned his remarks, calling for the death of the commander-in-chief.
The U.S. Secret Service confirmed to Fox News Digital that it is aware of Upham's comments and takes them seriously. A spokesperson stated:
"The U.S. Secret Service is aware of the comments made by a congressional candidate in Florida, and we investigate anything that can be perceived as a threat toward one of our protectees. Out of concern for operational security, we do not discuss matters of protective intelligence."
Fox News Digital also reached out to the FBI, the White House, and Upham's campaign for comment. No responses were reported.
Whether any federal investigation follows remains an open question. But the Secret Service's statement makes clear that the agency views the video through the lens of protective intelligence, not political speech.
Upham's video does not exist in a vacuum. President Trump has faced repeated threats and acts of violence during and since his time in office. The Secret Service has had to respond to armed attacks near the White House while the president was inside.
Federal prosecutors have pursued cases against individuals who made threats against the president through far less dramatic channels. An FAA contractor was charged with threatening to kill Trump after using a government computer to research assassination-related topics.
Even a former FBI director, James Comey, was indicted by a federal grand jury over a social media post that prosecutors characterized as a threat against the president. The legal threshold for what constitutes a credible threat is a matter of ongoing debate, but the trend line is clear. Federal authorities are not treating these cases as abstract political expression.
Upham's video is arguably more explicit than many of the cases that have already resulted in charges. He named the president. He said the president "must be killed." He said it on camera, in uniform, while running for federal office. The question is not whether the language was reckless. The question is what happens next.
Upham is running as a Republican write-in candidate in Florida's 5th Congressional District, where five-term incumbent Rep. John Rutherford holds the seat. His campaign profile on X describes him as a prosecutor focused on fixing a broken political system. He claims to want bipartisanship and working-class empowerment.
Those stated goals sit in sharp contrast with a video that calls the sitting president the embodiment of biblical evil and declares he must die. Whatever Upham's views on policy, his chosen method of expressing them has now drawn the attention of the Secret Service, the condemnation of the Marine Corps and the acting Navy secretary, and national media scrutiny.
The nature of his medical discharge from the Marine Corps, whether it was characterized as honorable, other than honorable, or something else, has not been publicly clarified. The Corps disclosed only the date: May 30, 2025.
Several important details remain unresolved. Has Upham responded to the backlash or to Fox News Digital's request for comment? Has the FBI opened a formal investigation? What specific Bible passages did he cite to justify his remarks? And what is the full content of the nearly seven-minute video beyond the excerpts that have been reported?
These are not idle questions. A congressional candidate publicly calling for the death of a sitting president, while wearing the uniform of the branch that just disowned him, raises serious legal and security concerns that deserve answers, not silence.
There is a certain kind of political figure who wraps dangerous language in the trappings of righteousness, Scripture, oaths, service records, and expects the packaging to excuse the content. It doesn't. Calling for the death of a president is not prophecy. It is not patriotism. It is not protected dissent in any meaningful sense when it is directed at a specific, named individual under federal protection.
The Marine Corps understood that immediately. The acting Navy secretary understood it. The Secret Service understood it. The only person who apparently did not is the man who posted the video.
President Trump has spoken openly about the threats against his life, even going so far as to reveal that he left standing orders in the event of his assassination. That is the world this president lives in, one where the threats are not hypothetical.
Upham may be a fringe candidate with no realistic path to office. But fringe candidates with cameras and social media accounts can still do real damage, not by winning elections, but by normalizing the kind of language that makes political violence thinkable.
When a former Marine officer, running for Congress, looks into a camera and says the president "must be killed," the country has a problem that goes well beyond one man's failed candidacy. And the people responsible for keeping the president safe know it.