Calling off livestream of execution was right call, members say

John M. Donnelly, CQ-Roll Call on Oct 15, 2026

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WASHINGTON — Members of Congress expressed relief Thursday after President Donald Trump overturned a Pentagon plan to livestream the execution of a man convicted of a deadly 2009 shooting spree at a Texas Army base.

On Oct. 8, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a broadcast interview, announced the department’s plan to air the Dec. 3 execution by firing squad of Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. army major who killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Fort Hood.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth said.

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

Trump said Hasan will die by firing squad as scheduled, and immediate family members of the victims may watch it if they choose, but the president said “this event will not be streamed.”

Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, commended the president’s decision in a statement Thursday but said the fact it was planned to begin with speaks ill of the Trump administration.

“Still, this episode highlights the impulsive and dysfunctional civilian leadership from the White House and U.S. Department of Defense,” Reed said. “Secretary Hegseth deserves to be admonished for his lack of judgment, lack of strategy, and poor communication — not just in regard to this one episode but throughout his disastrous tenure as Secretary of Defense.”

Some Republicans also expressed relief to see Trump block the proposed airing of the execution.

“This is the right move, both for the loved ones of the victims and for the country,” said Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, in a post on X.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., had made plain his opposition to the Pentagon’s planned streaming of the execution. In an Oct. 8 post on X, Tillis said doing so would be “beyond disgusting.”

“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” Tillis said. “It should not be happening in America.

Democrats had overwhelmingly criticized the proposed livestreaming.

Sen. Mazie K. Hirono, D-Hawaii, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in an Oct. 9 statement that it would be “a barbaric spectacle that jeopardizes our national security, core values, and global standing. This decision shows yet again Secretary Hegseth is wholly unfit to serve as Secretary of Defense. He should resign.”

Hirono, among others, argued that livestreaming the event “only hands extremists a powerful tool for anti-American recruitment and radicalization.”

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