Trump calls off firing squad livestream

War Secretary Pete Hegseth had said the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who gunned down 13 US service members, would be webcast The execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 US service members in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, will not be public, US President Donald Trump has announced.

Days earlier, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth promised it would be webcast, drawing criticism from lawmakers across party lines.

In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that the former US Army major “will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.” The US president explained that while webcasting Hasan’s execution “might have been a strong deterrent… many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.” Trump noted that the relatives of the victims would still have the right to view Hasan’s death in person.

Read more Pope condemns death penalty amid US execution livestream backlash According to Axios, citing an anonymous administration official, the US president has grown increasingly skeptical of the idea in recent days, not least because of all the “negative input” he supposedly received.

Speaking to reporters late last Friday, Trump said he “wasn’t involved in that decision.” Hegseth told conservative commentator Jack Posobiec last Thursday that Hasan is scheduled to be shot at 1 PM on December 3 – the approximate time of day of the original attack – at the same installation where he carried out the massacre.

“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, ” the secretary said.

It will be the first execution carried out by the US military in more than six decades and the first by an Army firing squad since World War II.

The last public execution in the US took place in 1936, making Hegseth’s idea of livestreaming it highly controversial.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis characterized the proposal as “beyond disgusting,” with his fellow GOP lawmaker, Representative Austin Scott, writing on X that “live-streaming executions is what jihadists do.” Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also likened public executions to those carried out by terrorist groups.

Archbishop Paul S.

Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, similarly condemned the livestream plan as a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” Born in the US in 1970 to Palestinian immigrant parents, Hasan trained as a doctor before becoming an Army psychiatrist.