Trump reconsiders Nidal Hasan firing squad livestream
By Adele Rutherford · Reporting from Atlanta ·
White House officials debate canceling the public broadcast of the Fort Hood shooter execution amid fears of terrorist propaganda and stark bipartisan pushback.
Procedure before spectacle
A rule that only works while your people hold power was never a rule. The United States military has not carried out a capital sentence since April 13, 1961, when John A. Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder, according to records compiled by CBS News, CNN, ABC News, and SBS News. When Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that former Army major Nidal Hasan would face execution by firing squad on December 3 at Fort Hood, and that the Pentagon planned to make the viewing public, the administration bypassed six decades of settled military justice. Mr. Hegseth told Real America's Voice that people need to see serious consequences, declaring that Hasan "is going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be." But law is not theater, and a firing squad is not a recruitment poster. By Tuesday, October 13, 2026, sources told CNN and CBS News that President Donald Trump and his advisers were debating whether to call off the livestream entirely. President Trump remarked privately that he did not initially know Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down from the 2009 shooting, where he killed 13 people and wounded dozens of others. If the power to end a life belongs to the state, the state must exercise it through cold procedure rather than hot impulse.
The strongest opposing case
The defense of the livestream rests on the stark clarity of retribution and deterrence. The administration argues that a public execution reestablishes accountability for a mass killer who shouted "Allahu Akbar!" while murdering his fellow soldiers in the Soldier Readiness Processing Center at Fort Hood. As Mr. Hegseth noted, transparency ensures the public witnesses the ultimate penalty for a heinous crime. Yet this argument collapses under the weight of its own strategic foolishness. As former Homeland Security official John Cohen told ABC News, for most terrorists, martyrdom is the objective, and a public execution provides free propaganda that adversaries will exploit to radicalize recruits. Outgoing Republican Senator Thom Tillis called the plan "beyond disgusting," writing on social media that public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. House Speaker Mike Johnson likewise warned that colleagues fear the video would become a recruiting tool for future terrorists. Even Vice President JD Vance distanced himself from the spectacle, stating bluntly in coverage by ABC News, "if it's all through livestream, I'm not going to be watching it." When your own vice president and congressional leaders refuse to watch your proposed broadcast, the policy has failed the basic test of governance: it cannot survive the moment your opponents hold the tool.
The long record
The historical pattern of United States military executions is not ambiguous. The last fully public execution in the United States took place in 1936, involving the hanging of Rainey Bethea in Owensboro, Kentucky, which drew a chaotic crowd of more than 20,000 people and became a national scandal whose severe public disorder prompted Kentucky to abolish public executions entirely eighteen months later. Today's debate over digital streaming shares the exact mechanism of the Kentucky hanging: the temptation to substitute mob catharsis for sober state authority. During the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse between 2004 and 2006, the dissemination of graphic imagery of military personnel committing violence created a propaganda victory for adversaries and fueled global condemnation. When the United States military started to become a permanent force in American life, as University of Sydney associate professor David Smith observed to SBS News, it was strongly believed that it had to be lawful and professional. Mr. Hegseth's push for a warrior culture that rejects traditional constraints invites precisely the kind of unguided violence that destroys institutional legitimacy. Legitimacy is a capital stock that spends fast and refills slowly. When the Department of Defense treats an execution as a broadcast event, it trades enduring legal authority for ephemeral online engagement.
The administration must cancel the livestream, let the military carry out the sentence of the court-martial with quiet finality, and remember that the dignity of the United States rests in its adherence to law rather than the reach of its cameras.
Sources
- CBS News: Trump officials now leaning against livestream of execution, sources say
- CNN: Trump debates calling off livestream of firing squad execution after learning Fort Hood shooter was paralyzed
- ABC News: Trump says 'they're making a determination' on livestream of Hasan execution
- SBS News: Why does the US want the world to see its executions?