Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on a Pentagon plan to livestream Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan’s execution and said he will not watch, while President Trump backed death by firing squad.
Vice President JD Vance said Friday he does not know if the Pentagon will actually livestream the coming execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, and made plain he wants no part of watching it.
The Associated Press reported that Vance still urged Americans not to forget what Hasan did, even as senators from both parties blasted the broadcast plan and President Donald Trump again backed putting the convicted mass killer to death by firing squad.
Hasan was convicted in the 2009 shooting spree at the Texas military base that killed 13 people and injured 32 others. The military has not executed a service member by firing squad since World War II, and the last U.S. military execution of any kind was the hanging of Army Pvt. John Bennett on April 13, 1961.
After more than a decade and a half, the man who murdered American troops is finally moving toward the death sentence a court imposed. That fact is the core of the story. The fight over cameras is secondary.
Vance, a Republican and a convert to the Catholic Church, did not bless the livestream idea. He questioned whether it would happen at all.
Speaking Friday, he told reporters he was unsure the Pentagon would proceed with a public stream of the execution.
Vance said:
"I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,"
He then turned the argument back to the crime itself.
Vance 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,"
And he closed the door on any personal viewing.
Vance said:
"Now, that said, I mean, look, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it,"
That is a sober line from a vice president who knows the Catholic Church has long opposed capital punishment. He did not lecture the country on theory. He pointed at the dead and the wounded.
President Trump has been far more direct about the outcome he wants.
At a Wednesday political event in Texas, Trump endorsed executing Hasan by firing squad and said “he deserves it.” On Friday, before travel to a political event in Syracuse, New York, he again backed the method and left little doubt about the end state.
Trump said:
"He will be killed. He will be, through firing squad,"
He added that the method mattered less than the result.
Trump said:
"I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes. And I think the death penalty is a very worthy way of going for him."
On the separate question of a livestream, the Associated Press described Trump as noncommittal Friday, saying officials were “making a determination about that.” The New York Post reported that Trump told reporters he had approved the livestreamed firing-squad plan, with the execution set for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, and quoted him calling Hasan a “maniac” who killed and wounded many people.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has noted the military has not used a firing squad on a service member since World War II. Lawmakers and critics have tied the livestream concept to his Pentagon. The New York Post reported Hegseth framed a public execution at Fort Hood as a way to show consequences.
Taxpayers housed this murderer for years while families of the fallen waited. A firing squad is severe. So was opening fire on unarmed soldiers at their own base.
The method of execution and the idea of streaming it drew a swift political and religious backlash.
Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement earlier Friday morning condemning the government’s decision to livestream the execution. He said he learned of the Department of War’s plan “with shock and great sorrow” and called it “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death” that “must be reconsidered.”
Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina did not mince words.
Tillis said the plan was “Beyond disgusting,” and added:
"Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America."
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, said there is a reason “almost no countries in the world engage in this barbaric practice.” Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska urged the Pentagon “to reverse this gruesome decision.” Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah warned against “feeding that appetite” for corrosive entertainment and said, “I urge him to reconsider.”
Those objections land on the broadcast, not on the underlying verdict. Hasan was tried and convicted for killing 13 people and wounding 32. No senator quoted here claimed he was innocent. The dispute is whether the United States should turn an execution into a streamed event.
The Fort Hood attack was in 2009. The last military execution was in 1961. In between sits a long stretch of legal process, institutional caution, and political hesitation that left victims’ families without finality.
Elsewhere, the death penalty’s practical problems are real. Tennessee’s governor halted further executions in that state this year after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection late last month. Botched procedures feed public doubt. They also explain why some officials look to older methods, including the firing squad, when lethal-injection protocols collapse.
None of that erases Hasan’s record. He was a soldier who turned his weapon on fellow service members at Fort Hood. Thirteen died. Thirty-two were hurt. A military justice system found him guilty. The president says the death penalty is a worthy punishment for him. The vice president says the country should not forget the innocent people Hasan murdered.
Critics call a livestream a spectacle and compare it to dictatorships and ancient blood sport. They are free to make that case. Officials who want the public to see consequences for slaughtering American troops are making a different case: that soft concealment and endless delay taught the wrong lesson for too long.
Vance’s refusal to watch is personal restraint. His insistence on remembering the victims is public duty. Trump’s backing of the firing squad is a clear statement that mass murder of U.S. soldiers still warrants the ultimate penalty.
Cameras or no cameras, the debt Hasan owes is written in the names of the dead. A nation that remembers them will not confuse justice with cruelty, or delay with mercy.
