WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Pentagon will no longer livestream the upcoming firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, reversing a controversial plan that had drawn sharp bipartisan condemnation and sparked intense national debate.
The execution, set for Dec. 3, will proceed as scheduled, but it will be shielded from public view. While the president previously floated the idea of a livestream as a “strong deterrent” to showcase how the United States handles terrorists, he acknowledged that the move had unsettled many Americans.
“Many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump wrote on social media. Under the revised plan, attendance will be strictly limited to the immediate families of the victims, should they choose to witness the event.
The reversal follows weeks of mounting pressure from across the political spectrum. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s earlier confirmation that the execution would be broadcast publicly had triggered warnings from lawmakers that such imagery could be weaponized by extremist groups for recruitment and radicalization.
The backlash was not confined to national security concerns; the moral implications of the move also drew fire from high-ranking officials. Vice President JD Vance, a Catholic, had notably distanced himself from the plan. When asked if he would watch the stream, Vance replied, “I’m not going to be watching it.” The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops had also issued a scathing rebuke, with Archbishop Paul S. Coakley labeling the prospect of a public execution a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP leaders had also voiced opposition to the spectacle, putting them at odds with the initial announcement. While President Trump has remained steadfast in his support for the use of a firing squad to execute Hasan, he had begun to distance himself from the logistics of a public broadcast in the days leading up to Thursday’s statement.
Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist, was convicted for the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood, where he opened fire on soldiers preparing for deployment, killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 others. Hasan, who was paralyzed during his arrest, has remained on death row for over a decade.
The military has not utilized a firing squad for an execution since the end of World War II, and the last time the U.S. military carried out an execution at all was in 1961.
The Pentagon declined to provide additional details on the logistics of the December 3 proceeding, maintaining that the president’s statement would serve as the final word on the matter. Despite the cancellation of the stream, legal experts note that Hasan could still attempt to file last-minute motions to delay the sentence, though it remains unclear whether he intends to mount such a challenge.
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