Pete Hegseth's livestream plan is a stain on American process
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wants to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, a move that trades solemn justice for a public spectacle and undermines the legitimacy of the state.
The American state is not a content creator. By proposing to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth mistakes the administration of justice for a public relations exercise. Justice is a process of law; a livestream is a performance. Broadcasting a firing squad execution trades the solemnity of the law for the appetite of a crowd. It is a failure of institutional judgment.
The confusion of deterrence with entertainment
The argument for the broadcast is simple. Secretary Hegseth stated that "people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things." This is the deterrence shortcut. The logic holds that making state violence visible renders warnings more effective.
As a lawyer, I test every shortcut against the day the opponent holds the tool. If a future administration livestreams punishment for political dissent to show serious consequences, the horror becomes clear. A rule that feels just only when applied to a monster is not a rule. It is a whim.
The record shows that this is not a tool of deterrence, but of erosion. Senator John Curtis noted that a civilization erodes when it "cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment." He is correct. When the state turns a sentence into a digital event, it focuses on the viewer rather than the crime.
The facts of the case are settled. Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting. He was convicted of those murders. Under military law, executions require presidential approval and an appellate review—a process where a higher court judges sentence legality. President Donald Trump provided that approval. The process of the law is sufficient to achieve the result. Adding a camera does not add justice; it only adds an audience.
A regression to the gallows
The United States has spent nearly a century moving the machinery of death behind walls. This was not an act of cowardice, but a marker of civilizational progress. The public spectacle of killing diminishes the state as much as it destroys the prisoner.
The parallel here is the execution of Rainey Bethea. In 1936, Bethea was publicly hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, after his conviction for rape. He stands as the last person publicly executed in Kentucky. The transition from the public square to the private chamber was a deliberate choice to separate the administration of the death penalty from the bloodlust of the mob.
To return to public executions now, via a digital stream, undoes decades of progress. Axios reports that this would be the first public execution in 90 years and the first military execution since 1961. It is a regression.
The international reaction confirms this. The UN human rights office told the BBC that livestreaming would be "tantamount to a public execution" and breach torture prohibitions. When the government mimics regimes it condemns, it spends its legitimacy. Legitimacy is a capital stock that spends fast and refills slowly. This plan is a reckless expenditure.
The tactical distance of the Vice President
Vice President JD Vance has attempted to navigate this friction with a lawyerly detachment. He stated on October 9, 2026, that "if it's all through livestream, I'm not going to be watching it." He further cast doubt on whether the execution would actually be public.
This is a tactical retreat. Vice President Vance cast the tie-breaking vote in January 2025 to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense. Having secured Hegseth's seat at the table, Vance now finds the menu distasteful. He supports the death penalty—calling Hasan a man who "brutally murdered a lot of innocent people"—but he declines the spectacle.
Vance's refusal to watch is a personal choice, but his public doubt is a political signal. He is distancing himself from a policy that risks looking barbaric, even to those who believe in the firing squad.
The platforms themselves are already signaling the limit of the public's appetite. Meta bans any livestream of capital punishment. TikTok bars the "moment of someone's death." Even modern tools are more restrained than the current leadership of the Pentagon.
The state's power is most legitimate when it is most boring. The execution of a mass murderer is a grave act of the law. It should be conducted with the solemnity the victims deserve and the precision the law requires. By attempting to turn a firing squad into a broadcast event, the administration is not projecting strength. It projects a hunger for spectacle that the legal tradition spent a century trying to outgrow.
The administration must walk back the livestream. The death penalty is a legal conclusion, not a media event. Treating it as a broadcast admits that the state no longer trusts the law to speak for itself.
Sources
- Axios: JD Vance says he won't watch livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter
- CNN: Hegseth wants America to watch a firing squad execution. It’s drawing backlash
- Anadolu Agency: Vance says he will not watch planned livestream of Fort Hood shooter's execution
- BBC: JD Vance casts doubt on firing squad execution and says he will not watch it