Christian podcaster arrested in Los Angeles on suspicion of threatening President Donald Trump

Karen Garcia, Los Angeles Times on Sep 3, 2026

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LOS ANGELES — Authorities arrested a podcaster at his Los Angeles home Thursday morning for allegedly threatening to kill President Donald Trump and threatening the president's personal attorney.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli for the Central District of California said in a post on X that Benjamin Azariah Southworth, a 40-year-old podcaster, was indicted by a grand jury on federal charges accusing him of "threatening to kill the president, cyberstalking and making harassing interstate calls," and was arrested at his home.

Essayli said Southworth is accused of also targeting the family of the President's personal attorney by publishing their home address and phone numbers and leaving threatening voicemails.

According to court documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times, in January 2025, Southworth sent private text messages that stated, "But if I could Kill him, I wouldn't waste the opportunity," referring to the president.

Federal officials allege that at the start of the year, Southworth used his website holymenace.com and associated and personal social media accounts to publicly express "his hatred toward President Trump and his supporters."

The indictment says that on March 31, Southworth posted on the since-deactivated Holy Menace Instagram account a video of himself speaking to the camera and saying, "Since the [United States] Supreme Court has ruled today that psychological, spiritual, emotional and physical torture known as gay conversion therapy is free speech, I want to practice my free speech as a survivor of conversion therapy for five years."

On that day, the Supreme Court ruled that the state of Colorado's ban on conversion therapy for LGBTQ+ youths violated the 1st Amendment's free-speech clause.

"Kill Donald Trump. Kill that motherf—pedophile in the White House. Kill that traitor of the United States Constitution. That's all," Southworth allegedly said in the video.

Southworth is being accused of posting videos to his social platforms "depicting fictitious portrayals of acts of violence against President Trump," according to court documents.

Two days later, 31-year-old Cole Tomas Allen of Torrance stormed the White House Correspondents' Assn. dinner in Washington, D.C., armed with guns and knives, and Southworth allegedly posted "IF AT FIRST YOU FAIL TRY AGAIN" on the livestream of the son of Trump's personal lawyer. It's unclear whether the livestream was related to the incident at the correspondents' dinner.

On the Holy Menace website, Southworth sells a sticker sheet of a mouse with bows on its head and the phrase, "kill trump."

Southworth is a podcaster, writer and former television presenter of "The Remix," a syndicated youth reality and music television show that featured Christian artists. In 2008, Southworth revealed that he was gay and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights.

He currently helms the "Yass, Jesus!" podcast, an interfaith and sexuality-affirming comedy show.

"Threats against the President of the United States are federal crimes," Essayli stated in the post. "We will not tolerate threats of political violence in the United States. My office will prosecute anyone who crosses that line to the fullest extent of the law."