Trump cancels planned livestream of Fort Hood shooter’s execution
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.
KALISPELL, Mont. — President Donald 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 on the grounds of Fort Hood, Texas, would be broadcast via livestream. But Trump said Thursday that only immediate families of Hasan’s victims will 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.”
In an interview with Real America’s Voice, Hegseth said he supported the public execution of Hasan “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Trump, in his post on social media, acknowledged 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.
