President Donald Trump said on Thursday that the forthcoming execution of a former U.S. Army psychiatrist who killed 13 colleagues at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009 will not be live-streamed, upending a controversial plan that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unveiled last week.
Nidal Malik Hasan will still be put to death by firing squad, but “this event will not be streamed,” Trump said in a social media post.
“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump said.
The decision, announced less than three weeks before the midterm elections, marks a significant rebuke of a senior Cabinet official whom Trump has stuck with through numerous controversies despite flagging support for Hegseth within the Republican Party.
A spokesman for Hegseth, Sean Parnell, said in a statement that Trump and Hegseth discussed the decision not to live-stream the execution ahead of the president’s announcement on social media.
“The Secretary supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned,” Parnell said.
Parnell’s statement does not address questions about whether Trump and Hegseth had discussed the issue before Hegseth announced his plan last week. Neither the Pentagon nor the White House responded to related questions.
Hegseth touted his live-stream plan on social media last Thursday, and it faced significant backlash almost immediately, including from many of the administration’s biggest allies. Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) both indicated they did not intend to watch the event, if it was to move forward, and Trump himself had suggested over the weekend that he would review the issue, an indication that he was not yet sold on the idea.
A Trump administration official said after the president’s social media post Thursday that they “can say with absolute certainty the White House was caught off guard” by Hegseth’s announcement last week. The official, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal, said that many people close to Hegseth also appeared to be surprised.
The execution has been scheduled for Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, though it’s unclear if an appeal from Hasan could alter that timeline.
A former Army major, Hasan was convicted on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of premeditated attempted murder following his Nov. 5, 2009, assault on U.S. soldiers who were preparing for an overseas deployment.
Hasan was shot by police responding to the attack and paralyzed. A U.S.-born Muslim, he has previously described launching the assault after a period of religious radicalization and watching how the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were proceeding.
About 8 in 10 Americans were opposed to live-streaming the execution, with a narrow majority of 53 percent supporting putting Hasan to death by firing squad, according to a nationwide poll released earlier Thursday by The Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos.
Those opposed to the live-streaming plan included a majority of nearly every demographic and political group surveyed, including people who support Hasan’s execution by firing squad, the poll found. Fifty-seven percent of men who identify with Trump’s Make America Great Again movement said they supported live-streaming the execution.
Within the military, Hegseth’s live-stream plan had drawn some support but also disgust, grim jokes and outrage, according to interviews conducted by The Washington Post in recent days.
Retired Lt. Gen. Sean MacFarland, who as the top commander at Fort Hood in 2017 approved Hasan’s execution, took a public stand against the live-stream effort, saying in a LinkedIn post last week that while he had authorized the death sentence, carrying it out in such a manner was “a terrible idea” and would essentially be Hegseth giving Hasan “exactly what he wants.”
MacFarland’s career included commanding troops in the U.S.-led campaign against the Islamic State militant group in Iraq and Syria. He told The Post before Trump’s announcement that questions remained about using a firing squad, something the military hasn’t done since World War II, and carrying out the execution at Fort Hood, where the tragedy remains a painful memory throughout the community.
But the “most disturbing element” of Hegseth’s plan was the live-streaming, MacFarland said.
“That is too reminiscent of what our enemies in al-Qaeda and ISIS were doing to their captives,” MacFarland said. “We should in no way imitate what they were doing, and keep to moral high ground.”
The general said in a subsequent phone call Thursday that he was relieved the administration had shifted course.
Hegseth first publicized his desire for allowing the public to watch Hasan’s execution during an interview with Jack Posobiec, a far-right activist and conspiracy theorist.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth told Posobiec.
The Pentagon disclosed the live-stream concept after the interview was published.
Among those who had shown support for Hegseth’s plan was Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. On Sunday, he told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” that he has no sympathy for Hasan and that “no one has to watch” the execution.
“He leads this country with a very, very, very direct, forward straight hand, and he’s restoring American values,” Mullin said of Trump.
Palmer Luckey, a co-founder of the defense technology company Anduril, also said he supported public executions. In a social media post, Luckey said he believes they “should be public and brutal, not private and medicalized.” He recently joined Hegseth’s team on a temporary basis to assist with an effort to shape the military’s future.
Another supporter of the live-stream idea was Army Lt. Col. Adam D’Ortona, an active-duty officer assigned to Hegseth’s staff in an advisory capacity.
In one social media post, D’Ortona acknowledged recent reporting indicating that some soldiers were concerned they could be identified as participants in the firing squad.
“To be clear, I would do this myself without a mask,” he wrote. “Millions of us would. But if there’s legitimate concern about anonymity, it’s Fort Hood … use a tank.”
Amy B Wang and Alauna Safarpour contributed to this report.
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