US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday that the firing-squad execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will not be livestreamed, reversing a controversial Pentagon plan that drew bipartisan backlash and international condemnation.
Key Takeaways
- Trump said on Truth Social that Hasan’s execution “will not be streamed,” reversing a plan announced last week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
- The execution is still set for December 3 at Fort Hood, and will be the first US military execution since 1961 and the first by firing squad since World War II.
- Victims’ immediate families will be allowed to attend in person, Trump said, adding: “They deserve to witness JUSTICE!”
- An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll found 80% of US adults — including 64% of Republicans — opposed livestreaming the execution.
Trump overrules the Pentagon’s streaming plan
Hegseth announced on October 8 that Hasan’s execution would be made public, telling an interviewer that “people are able to watch it, that it’s public” because, in his words, people needed to understand the serious consequences of such acts. The plan immediately sparked outrage from lawmakers in both parties, faith leaders, and the United Nations.
Trump, who strongly backed the execution itself, acknowledged the backlash in his Truth Social post on Thursday. He wrote that while a broadcast “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan,” he had decided against it because “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Hegseth spoke with Trump before the announcement, adding: “The Secretary supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned.” Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson had both publicly questioned the streaming plan — Vance said he would not watch it and doubted it would ultimately go ahead.
CNN reported earlier this week that Trump had privately remarked he did not initially know Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down, and that he had not been aware Hegseth was going to announce the livestream plan. The reversal also lands as Hegseth faces a difficult stretch: a day earlier, protesters at a major Army conference repeatedly disrupted his panel, calling him a “war criminal.”
The first military execution in 65 years
Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, was convicted in 2013 of killing 13 people and wounding 32 others in the November 5, 2009 attack at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center. The execution is scheduled for December 3 at 1 p.m. Central Time — the same hour of the day he opened fire in 2009.
If carried out, it would be the first US military execution since 1961 and the first by a military firing squad since 1945, during World War II. The United States has not held a public execution since 1936, when around 20,000 people gathered in Kentucky to watch a hanging.
Sources: Reuters, CNN, USA Today, Al Jazeera and The Times.
