A man from the Chicago suburbs is sitting in federal jail after he posted videos on Instagram threatening President Donald Trump. Trent Schneider, 57, lives in Winthrop Harbor, Illinois. Police arrested him on Monday morning. He is charged with making threats to hurt someone across state lines. He went to court and a judge said he has to stay locked up until his next hearing on November 6, 2025.
Court papers that were made public on Monday show what Schneider did. He posted a video of himself on Instagram, as per Fox News. In that video, he said he was going to get guns and take care of business himself. He said people need to die and are going to die. Then he said Trump should be executed. Schneider did not just post the video once. He posted the same video about 18 to 20 times between October 16 and October 21.
Every time he posted it, he wrote the same message. It said his house was going to be sold at auction on November 4, 2025, and that Trump should be executed. He also wrote that it was not a threat, even though what he said in the video sounded like a clear threat. Many of his posts tagged Trump Tower Chicago. Someone in Florida saw one of the videos on October 16 and told the police about it. That is how the U.S. Secret Service found out and started looking into what Schneider was doing.
The timing looks pretty telling when you consider what he was going through
Court records show that Schneider was really losing his house. There was a foreclosure case against him and his home was set to be auctioned off on November 4. That is the exact date he kept mentioning in his posts. In the video, he also went after judges, doctors, lawyers, and police officers. He blamed them for his problems and said they all should be killed and executed for what they have done to people like him.
The Secret Service worked together with the local sheriff’s office to arrest Schneider. They used a SWAT team to go to his house on Monday and arrest him. Everything went smoothly and nobody got hurt. The head of the Secret Service, Sean Curran, put out a statement after the arrest. Meanwhile, Trump has also made headlines for his stance on the New York City mayoral race.
He said protecting the President is their most important job. He said they look into every single threat against the President no matter where it comes from. He also said this case shows that what people do online has real consequences.
This was not the first time Schneider got in trouble for making threats. Back in December 2022, police arrested him for threatening to shoot up a T-Mobile store. But he never went to trial for that because a court found he was not mentally fit to stand trial.
When he was in court on Monday, Schneider acted strangely. He told the judge that by Thursday, everyone would have their facts straight. He asked if he could get an apology. He kept calling the charges against him fraud and said the military was watching everything that was happening.
If a jury finds Schneider guilty, he could spend up to five years in federal prison. He could also have to pay a fine of up to $250,000. Trump has been demanding major changes to how Congress operates in recent months.
Published: Nov 4, 2025 03:11 pm