The Pentagon plans to livestream the Dec. 3 firing-squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. The plan would let the public watch a military execution, drawing objections from the Catholic Church and leaving Vice President JD Vance uncertain about whether the broadcast will happen.
The execution is planned for the same base, the same day of the week and the same time of day that Hasan opened fire. The New York Times reported that this would be the first official execution broadcast live in the United States, with Americans invited to watch on phones, laptops and other screens.
Who controls the broadcast
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth outlined the public access 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 approved the execution plan. “Did I approve? Absolutely I did,” he told reporters. At a White House event, Trump 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.
The Pentagon's proposal raises a question about access to a military execution. Officials described no limits on who could watch, although an Army manual restricts witnesses at an execution. The New York Times reported that the proposal surprised some people within the administration. The source article doesn't describe what limits, if any, would govern the public broadcast.
Objections and uncertainty
Vance questioned whether the livestream 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.” He 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 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,” he 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.”
The statements put the proposed broadcast at the center of a dispute over how the military carries out and presents capital punishment. Hegseth said viewers should understand the consequences of the crime; Coakley called for the decision to be reconsidered. Vance questioned the broadcast but emphasized the victims and Hasan's killings.
The execution method
Trump approved the firing-squad method days after a failed attempt late the previous month to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection prompted Tennessee's governor to halt further executions in the state this year. 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 Pentagon's plan, the president's approval and objections from church leaders and Vance leave the broadcast unresolved in the source accounts: the execution is planned for Dec. 3, but Vance said he didn't know whether livestreaming would actually happen.