Donald Trump has appeared to temper Pete Hegseth’s startling proposal to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, telling reporters that the final decision rests with him.
The Defense Secretary said Thursday that Nidal Hasan would be executed in a live broadcast. Hasan was sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.
The proposal triggered widespread outrage, with critics accusing the Trump administration of treating the execution in a dystopian and inhumane manner.
But speaking to reporters at the White House on Saturday, Trump said he had not yet reached a final decision on whether the execution would be livestreamed.
‘There are two thoughts: don’t show it and show it. Cause you know, by showing it, maybe other people won’t be doing what he did. So I’ll make a decision ultimately. I know what the military would like to do, but I’ll make a decision,’ Trump said.
The president described Hasan as a ‘vicious killer,’ saying the former Army major murdered 13 people ‘in cold blood’ and wounded 20 others.
‘Some of those people will never have their lives back in a true sense,’ Trump added.
Trump’s apparent reversal came after he backed Hegseth’s livestream proposal on Wednesday, saying Hasan ‘deserves it.’
Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Saturday that he would ultimately decide whether the execution is livestreamed
Former US Major Nidal Hasan was sentenced to death for killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth previously said that Hasan’s execution would be livestreamed
On Friday, Trump said the Pentagon was ‘making a determination’ about whether the execution would be made public, while confirming that Hasan would be put to death by firing squad either way.
‘I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes. And I think the death penalty is a very worthy way of going for him,’ he said.
Asked that same day whether he had authorized the livestream, Trump replied that he ‘absolutely’ had.
Vice President JD Vance also cast doubt on whether the broadcast would take place. Asked about the proposal Friday, he told reporters: ‘I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen.’
Vance said he would not watch if the execution were livestreamed.
‘So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,’ the vice president added.
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Hegseth first introduced the idea during an interview on Jack Posobiec’s podcast. He argued that the execution should be public ‘because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.’
The Defense Secretary also portrayed the firing squad as a return to tactics used by the US Army during World War II.
He said he admired ‘the mentality we had in World War II, which was win. Which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you stand your ground.’
The announcement sparked backlash and condemnation. The UN human rights office said on Friday that broadcasting the killing ‘is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture.’
Democratic Senator Chris Murphy went further, asking: ‘What is he mimicking? ISIS executions.’
‘I understand that in this country we have the death penalty, but public executions is medieval,’ he said, calling it ‘one of the things that we abhor about terrorist groups.’
The backlash crossed party lines, with Republican Senator Thom Tillis declaring that public executions are ‘what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do.’
‘It should not be happening in America,’ the North Carolina senator wrote on X, adding that streaming the death was ‘beyond disgusting.’
Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff told MS Now that the Defense Secretary is ‘a deeply unwell person who seems to relish this kind of brutality.’
He accused Hegseth of staging an ‘obscene medieval spectacle’ while ‘running a department that is falling into chaos.’
‘The guy cannot run the military competently,’ Ossoff added.
Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, murdered 13 people when he opened fire inside a medical building at Fort Hood, Texas, in November 2009
The head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops also slammed the decision, with Archbishop Paul S Coakley calling it a ‘barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.’
Hasan was convicted in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted murder for the killings.
He told officers that he was targeting soldiers deploying to Afghanistan because they were ‘going to engage in an illegal war.’
Hasan descended on a medical processing center at Fort Hood and followed soldiers out the back door before exchanging gunfire with police. His execution is scheduled for December 3 at 1pm.
