President Trump scrapped a planned livestream of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s firing-squad execution, rejecting the public spectacle while keeping the Dec. 3 sentence firmly on track.
President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the government will not stream the scheduled firing-squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major who murdered 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. The execution remains set for Dec. 3. Immediate family members of the victims will still be allowed to watch in person.
NBC News reported that the decision reverses a plan Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth floated only last week, when he said the public would be able to watch soldiers carry out the sentence.
Trump left no ambiguity about the outcome for Hasan. Justice will be delivered. It simply will not become a broadcast event.
"He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed."
That was Trump’s plain statement on Truth Social, alongside his description of Hasan as a traitor and a very bad and evil man who killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier and her unborn son, and seriously injured 32 more. The Washington Examiner carried the fuller post.
Hegseth had said the military was “going to get a firing squad of soldiers, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.” The announcement caught senior White House officials, Army planners, and Pentagon staff by surprise. For months the Army had prepared for a lethal injection at the federal facility in Terre Haute. Talk of a firing squad then shifted planning toward Fort Leavenworth before Hegseth pointed to Fort Hood itself.
Trump initially saw the deterrent value. Over the weekend at the White House he told reporters there were “two thoughts: don’t show it and show it,” noting that a public display might discourage others from doing what Hasan did. He said he would make the final call.
He did. In the Truth Social post he acknowledged a livestream “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan.” Then he rejected it for a simpler reason: “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.”
A White House official said Trump also learned Hasan is paralyzed, a detail that factored into the final judgment against turning the sentence into televised theater.
Pushback came quickly from both parties, but key conservatives spoke up early. A day after Hegseth’s remarks, Vice President JD Vance cast doubt on any broadcast.
"I don’t know that’s going to happen." "I’m not going to be watching it."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told CBS News earlier this week that lawmakers had to “think through the policy implications of all that.” He warned the video could become a recruiting tool for future terrorists and said he would not watch it if aired. “Not everybody is in favor of the idea.”
Breitbart reported that opposition stretched across U.S. lawmakers of both parties, the Catholic Church, the United Nations, and retired military officers. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found eight in 10 Americans opposed livestreaming the execution. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell later said Hegseth “supports the president’s decision, and they are completely aligned.”
Fort Hood survivors welcomed the reversal. Alonzo Lunsford, shot seven times in the 2009 attack, and civilian survivor Julia Wilson both praised Trump for keeping cameras out while still allowing victims’ immediate families to attend.
Fox News quoted Lunsford’s blunt assessment of what a public stream would have meant.
"It proves that we are a better people, a better nation, and that we're not barbaric. We don't glorify such actions."
Lunsford added that an execution “is not a spectacle. It’s not a pay-per-view event or a WWE wrestling match or even a boxing match.”
That distinction matters. Hasan was an Army psychiatrist and major who opened fire on fellow service members at the Texas base in 2009. The Army sentenced him to death in 2013. Critics have long noted his stated desire for martyrdom. Giving him a global audience risked handing him exactly the stage he wanted.
The United States military has not carried out an execution since 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged after his conviction for raping and attempting to kill an 11-year-old girl in Austria. The last military firing-squad execution was in 1945, when Pvt. Eddie Slovik was shot for desertion during World War II.
Hasan’s case will break that long pause. It will not break the country’s basic standards of decency in the process. Trump kept the sentence intact, protected the families’ right to witness it, and refused to turn a lawful execution into content.
Deterrence still counts. So does the example America sets when it punishes terrorists. Broadcasting a man’s death to the world, complete with the risk of propaganda clips and viral gore, is not strength. It is theater. Trump chose the harder, quieter form of accountability instead.
Hasan will face the firing squad. The cameras will stay off. That is how a serious country closes the book.
