President Donald Trump has overturned Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s decision to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood terrorist, following widespread backlash over the plan.
Trump described Nidal Malik Hasan, the former U.S. Army major, as “a very bad and evil man” who “killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier, who died, along with her unborn son, and injured, very seriously, 32 more innocent people” in the 2009 attack.
Hasan is scheduled to be executed by firing squad on December 3.
Hegseth said last week that the execution would be made “public,” and the Department of War later confirmed that it planned to broadcast the event live.
The announcement drew immediate condemnation from politicians in both parties, many of whom objected to what they described as barbaric tactics.
The public also reacted negatively. In a Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll released Thursday, 80 percent of U.S. adults said the administration should not livestream the execution.
“He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump said Thursday, acknowledging the controversy surrounding the decision.
“That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said he would make public the scheduled firing-squad execution of a former Army major. Trump reversed that decision on Thursday.
Nidal Hasan, pictured, the former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people and wounded more than 30 others in the Fort Hood mass shooting, is scheduled to face execution by firing squad in December.
In announcing the Pentagon’s policy reversal, Trump also criticized former President Barack Obama, arguing that his administration failed to prevent the attack despite earlier warning signs. Trump called it a “key intelligence failure.”
“Barack Hussein Obama’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intercepted electronic communications between Hasan and the radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki. When reviewed by his FBI terrorism task force, investigators concluded that Hasan’s emails were not a threat.”
During a forceful address last week, Hegseth said he wanted the American public to be able to witness Hasan’s death.
“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 said of the execution planned for Thursday.
The Pentagon later told the Daily Mail: “The Secretary is correct. It will be livestreamed. Details will follow.”
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The proposal faced opposition almost immediately.
“An execution shouldn’t be a live-streamed spectacle…. Their pain deserves respect, not a public show,” Republican Congressman Rob Bresnahan said following the announcement.
Republican Senator John Curtis of Utah also warned: “A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment.”
Trump’s announcement that Hasan’s execution will not be livestreamed came one week after Hegseth said the firing-squad execution would be public.
During his trial, Hasan told jurors he had “switched sides” in what he described as America’s war with Islam.
Hasan said he launched the terror attack at Fort Hood because he was angry that American troops were deployed to Afghanistan and wanted to protect Islamic and Taliban leaders.
Hasan walked into a medical readiness building on the base in November 2009 carrying two guns and several magazines of ammunition.
He shouted ‘Allahu Akbar,’ Arabic for ‘God is great,’ and opened fire on soldiers awaiting medical tests and vaccines.
The mass shooting, which killed 13 and left 32 wounded, was the deadliest attack on a domestic military installation in US history. Hasan was shot and paralyzed from the waist down in the resulting gunfire and was sentenced to death in 2013.
It would be the first public execution since 1937, when convicted murderer Roscoe Jackson was hanged in Missouri.
Government lawyers have said Hasan did not want to go on an impending deployment to Afghanistan.
The Department of Defense called the attack an act of workplace violence, not terrorism.
Hasan is one of four inmates on death row in the US Army’s justice system.
The Justice Department announced earlier this year that it would adopt firing squads as a permitted method of execution as the Trump administration moves to ramp up and expedite capital punishment cases.
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