President Trump has scrapped the Pentagon’s plan to livestream Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan’s firing-squad execution, saying families deserve justice without forcing the nation to watch.
President Donald Trump announced that the scheduled firing-squad execution of convicted Fort Hood killer Nidal Hasan will go forward as planned, but will not be streamed to the public.
Fox News reported that Trump reversed an earlier Pentagon move to make the Dec. 3 execution available for public viewing, while still allowing the immediate families of the 13 people Hasan murdered to attend in person if they choose.
In a Truth Social post, Trump put the decision in plain terms.
"He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,"
Trump wrote. He added that the families “deserve to witness JUSTICE!”
Just days earlier, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Real America’s Voice the execution would be public.
"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public,"
Hegseth said Wednesday. Pentagon officials then confirmed Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed, though they had not yet released full logistics.
Trump shut that plan down. He said streaming might have served as a deterrent, but he also recognized that many Americans do not want to sit through it.
"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,"
Trump posted. He continued that “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.”
That is the balance he struck: the sentence stands, the spectacle does not.
On Nov. 5, 2009, then-Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire inside a medical processing building at Fort Hood, Texas, where soldiers were preparing for deployment. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others. Authorities said he shouted “Allahu akbar” during the attack.
Law enforcement shot Hasan. He survived but was left paralyzed from the waist down. In his 2013 military trial, he acknowledged carrying out the shooting, dismissed his attorneys, represented himself, and received a death sentence.
If the Dec. 3 date holds, it would be the first U.S. military execution in more than 65 years. The last one came in April 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged.
Hasan could still try to delay the sentence through a habeas corpus petition in civilian court. Experts note that kind of filing can push a date back significantly.
Trump also used the moment to revisit the lead-up to the massacre. The FBI intercepted electronic communications between Hasan and radical cleric Anwar al-Awlaki before the attack. Trump called investigators’ failure to treat Hasan as a clear threat a major intelligence failure under the Obama administration.
That history matters because the Fort Hood case was never just a workplace shooting. It was a jihadist attack on a U.S. military post by a uniformed officer who had already drawn scrutiny and still reached the victims.
A memorial ceremony at Fort Hood on Nov. 10, 2009, honored the 13 dead. More than a decade and a half later, their families are still waiting for the sentence to be carried out.
Trump’s decision keeps the core of the judgment intact. Hasan remains scheduled to die by firing squad. The people who lost sons, daughters, husbands, and wives can be present. The rest of the country does not have to treat the execution like a live broadcast.
For years, soft handling of terror cases and endless delay have left victims’ families in limbo. A lawful military sentence, carried out on schedule, is the opposite of that pattern. Public accountability does not require turning an execution into streaming entertainment.
The families get to see justice done. The killer faces the sentence a military court handed down. America does not need a livestream to prove it finally means what it says about terrorists who murder our troops.
