Trump Cancels Plan to Livestream Execution after Condemnation

By Staff, Agencies

US President Donald Trump has shelved a widely condemned plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people at a military base at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.

In a social media post on Thursday, Trump argued that broadcasting such an execution “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan” but said that “many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device”.

“He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump added. “That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose.”

Hasan, who was left paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by law enforcement officers during the shooting at Fort Hood, now uses a wheelchair.

The US War secretary, Pete Hegseth, said last week that the execution of Hasan would be a public event. Hasan’s sentence will be the first military execution in more than 60 years, and would have been the first in US history to be publicly broadcast.

In a statement on Thursday, a spokesperson for the Pentagon said Trump and Hegseth “spoke about the decision to not livestream Hasan’s execution” before Trump’s statement. Hegesth “supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned”, they added.

In an interview with Real America’s Voice last Thursday, Hegseth said he supported the public execution “because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things”.

On Friday of last week, the United Nations’ office of the high commissioner for human rights warned that broadcasting the killing would amount to a public execution and “breach the absolute prohibition of torture”, and the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops also condemned the Pentagon’s plan, saying in a statement that “in no way can Hassan’s actions be condoned but this decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered”.

“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people,” the statement added.

That same day, JD Vance appeared to cast doubt on whether the Pentagon would actually livestream the execution, telling reporters that “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen” when asked about the plans. The vice-president also said that if it were livestreamed, “I’m not going to be watching it.”