President Trump on Thursday canceled the Pentagon’s planned livestream of the execution of the Army officer who was convicted in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting.
Pentagon officials said last week that the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, would be broadcast via livestream. But Mr. Trump said Thursday that only immediate families of Mr. Hasan’s victims would be able to watch the execution in person.
“Many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” he wrote on social media. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.”
Democrats and Republicans in Congress panned Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to livestream the shooting, and even Vice President JD Vance expressed doubt about the plan.
“I’m not going to be watching it,” he said. He added: “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen.”
The plan to broadcast Mr. Hasan’s execution, which the Pentagon said is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Dec. 3 at the same Army post where the massacre took place, had also drawn widespread condemnation from retired military officials, religious leaders and even some of the wounded soldiers who survived.
On Wednesday, dozens of retired admirals, generals and other officers published an open letter opposing the plan.
“Livestreaming this execution would clearly violate the basic human dignity of the condemned prisoner,” they wrote. “It turns what should be the solemn and grave punishment of a member of our society for committing the most serious crimes into a carnival for the enjoyment of voyeurs and spectators.”
“This type of exploitative broadcasting — that debases human dignity — will taint the honor of the military that employs it, and a nation that allows it,” they added.
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, Mr. Hegseth said he supported the public execution of Mr. Hasan “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Mr. Trump, in his post on social media, contended that streaming the execution “might have been a strong deterrent” to show how “America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan,” but he said it would not go forward.
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