The Pentagon plans to livestream Nidal Malik Hasan’s execution by firing squad at Fort Hood, where he killed 13 people and injured 32 others in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the public broadcast would show that violent acts carry “serious consequences.”
The State’s Plan
Officials plan the execution for Dec. 3, the same day of the week and time of day that Hasan opened fire. The New York Times reported that it would mark the first official execution broadcast live in the United States, with Americans invited to watch on phones, laptops and other screens.
The Pentagon hasn’t described limits on who could watch. An Army manual, however, restricts witnesses at an execution. The source article doesn’t specify how the Pentagon plans to reconcile that restriction with a livestream meant for the public.
Hegseth discussed the plan in an interview with a conservative news outlet. “We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand there's serious consequences for these types of things,” he said.
President Donald Trump said he’d approved the execution plan. “Did I approve? Absolutely I did,” Trump told reporters. At a White House event, he said Hasan would receive “the death penalty through firing squad. And he deserves it,” and called him “a maniac.” Trump didn’t mention the Pentagon’s livestream plan at the event.
Reaction Inside and Outside Government
Vice President JD Vance questioned whether the broadcast would happen. “I don't know that that's actually going to happen,” he said, adding that if it did, “I'm not going to be watching it.” Vance also said, “So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don't forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people.”
Vance is a convert to the Catholic Church, which has long opposed capital punishment. Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned the livestream decision in a statement.
“It is with shock and great sorrow that I have learned of the Department of War's decision to publicly livestream the execution of Nidal Hassan,” Coakley said. “Our God is the God of life. In no way can Hassan's actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.”
Execution Method and Precedent
Trump approved the firing-squad method days after a failed attempt late the previous month to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection led Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions in the state this year. The article doesn’t describe a change to that state decision.
Hegseth said the military hadn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging. The New York Times reported that the livestream proposal surprised some people within the administration. Trump approved the Pentagon’s plan, while Vance and Coakley objected, putting the proposed state execution and its public broadcast at the center of the dispute.