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Trump cancels Pentagon plans to livestream firing squad execution
8 in 10 Americans opposed the Pentagon’s plans, a Thursday poll showed.
On Thursday, Donald Trump called off the Pentagon’s highly controversial plans to livestream a firing squad execution that is still on schedule for December 3.
Trump supports the execution of Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. But sources close to Trump told CNN that the president was blindsided last week when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the event—which is the first US execution of a soldier since World War II—would be livestreamed.
Backlash to the livestream was immediate and crossed political divides. On the morning Trump canceled the plans, an ABC News poll found 8 in 10 Americans were against the livestream, including a 55 percent majority of MAGA Republicans.
Insiders told ABC News that Trump feared that “broadcasting the execution could super charge anti-American propaganda or reflect poorly on the US.” Privately, Trump had remarked that “he did not initially know that Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down,” CNN reported. As one Army officer appalled by Hegseth’s announcement explained in a separate CNN report, livestreaming the execution “takes away everything America stands for.”
“The generational harm caused by allowing troops in uniform to stand in front of a man in a wheelchair and watch him get shot to death is irreparable,” the officer, who was deployed multiple times in the Middle East, told CNN.
On Truth Social, Trump confirmed that Hasan “will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.” Families of victims will still be able to watch the execution, but the execution will not be broadcast for the public.
“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.
Among “well-meaning people” who influenced Trump’s decision was Vice President JD Vance. On Friday, Vance told press that if the livestream happened, “I’m not going to be watching it.”
Beyond the potential harms of exposing the public to psychological trauma, the Pentagon seemingly had not considered other challenges the livestream might pose, CNN reported.