A former Marine now running for Congress as a Republican in Florida was arrested this week and charged with threatening the president, days after he stood in uniform and said that President Donald Trump is the “Antichrist” who “must be killed.”
Federal authorities arrested Jacksonville resident William L. Upham, 35, and charged him with threatening the President of the United States, U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe announced. If convicted, Upham faces up to five years in federal prison. A federal judge ordered him detained after his initial court appearance in Jacksonville, Florida, on Thursday.
Upham is a qualified write-in candidate challenging Republican Rep. John Rutherford in Florida’s 5th Congressional District. Florida’s Republican primary is scheduled for Aug. 18, followed by the general election on Nov. 3.
The charge stems from a video Upham posted to his own campaign account on X. It runs nearly seven minutes. It starts almost like a stump speech: God and country, fixing a broken system, giving power back to working people. Upham then said the country was in a spiritual war and that Trump was on the wrong side of it.
“There is no doubt in my mind that the president of the United States, Donald J. Trump, is the Antichrist,” he said. “He is a false messiah, and he is your enemy, and he must be killed.” He closed by saying Trump “will be killed and sent to hell.”
He wore his Marine uniform through all of it. At one point, he quoted the oath he swore as an officer, to defend the Constitution “against all enemies, foreign and domestic,” and said those enemies included “the enemies here at home.”
The Marine Corps said Upham had been medically discharged on May 30, 2025, and that his words broke the oath he took.
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