President Donald Trump indicated his administration was still making a decision on whether to go ahead with plans to livestream the execution of a former Army major who killed 13 people in 2009, amid bipartisan criticism of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s idea.
"We’re making a determination about that,” Trump told reporters Friday at the White House when asked about the plan to broadcast the execution of former Army psychologist Nidal Hasan.
"But he will be killed. He will be through firing squad,” Trump added. "I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes, and I think that the death penalty is a very worthy way of going for him.”
Hegseth on Thursday made a surprise announcement that the execution would be broadcast publicly. Republicans and Democrats alike - including some supporters of Trump - have said livestreaming the execution violates American values and could fuel terrorist recruitment. Senator John Curtis, a Utah Republican, urged Hegseth to reconsider.
"I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do,” Representative Austin Scott, a Georgia Republican who has been critical of Hegseth in the past, said in a post on social media. "America is better than that.”
Earlier Friday, Vice President JD Vance had also cast doubt on whether the execution would be livestreamed and said he would not watch if it was.
"I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” Vance said when asked how Hegseth’s plan squared with his Christian faith. "Look, if it’s all through livestream, I’m not going to be watching it.”
The vice president, who wrote a book this year about his conversion to Catholicism, made clear he believed that Hasan should be executed.
Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement condemning the plan for a public execution as "a barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” The Catholic Church opposes capital punishment.
Hasan opened fire at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Center in Killeen, Texas, in November 2009, killing 13 and wounding 32 before he was subdued. He was sentenced by a military court to death, and he’s set to be executed by firing squad on Dec 3.
Hegseth announced the plan during an interview with Real America’s Voice on Thursday. The idea touched off a wave of condemnation from Democrats, who renewed calls for his removal and have voiced plans to try to impeach him if they gain control of the House of Representatives in November.
Public executions haven’t been carried out in the US for decades, and Army regulations limit the witnesses who can attend - including barring anyone younger than 18. There is no formal provision for live-streaming the punishment.
Hegseth’s decision had its supporters. Representative Andy Ogles, a Tennessee Republican, said in a social media post that public execution "is what this terrorist deserves. We will be watching.”
Katie Miller, who served in the first Trump administration and is married to senior aide Stephen Miller, invoked the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in backing the decision. "Charlie Kirk was murdered for all to see,” Miller said in a post on X. "We should all see accountability when it finally comes.”
Conservative commentator Erick Erickson suggested the administration would actually be undermining its own cause, including efforts to advance Christianity. He focused in part on the fact that Hasan was paralysed from the waist down in the aftermath of the shooting and remains confined to a wheelchair.
"If the Pentagon does go forward with this, it is actually soul-twisting to turn the execution of a criminal into reality television for the entertainment of Americans,” Erickson wrote on his Substack.
Retired Lieutenant General Sean MacFarland, who approved Hasan’s death sentence when he commanded Fort Hood in 2013, called Hegseth’s plan "a terrible idea.”
"It is fair to ask whether carrying out the sentence at Fort Hood and live streaming it is justice, vengeance, or a mere spectacle for the masses,” MacFarland said. – Bloomberg
