Firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter will not be livestreamed, Trump says

President Donald Trump announced the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan will not be livestreamed.

The president said in a Truth Social post on Oct. 15 that while he still believes “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 … many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.” 

Trump said the execution of the convicted mass shooter will still take place by firing squad on Dec. 3 and the victims’ immediate families will still be allowed to attend.

Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell had announced Oct. 5 on X that Trump had approved Hasan’s execution. On Oct. 8, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in an interview with Real Americaʼs Voice that the execution would be livestreamed from Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas, where Hasan, a psychiatrist and former Army major, killed 14 people, including an unborn baby, and wounded 32 others in the terrorist attack.

The U.S. bishops have strongly opposed the decision to livestream the execution. Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services, USA, issued a joint statement with the Texas Catholic bishops Oct. 12 urging the president to reconsider the decision, which he characterized as “barbarically killing our adversaries.”

Broglio reiterated the Church’s revised position on capital punishment, saying “the dignity of the human person is at stake.”

In a social media post on Oct. 10, World Day Against the Death Penalty, Pope Leo XIV wrote: “The death penalty is inadmissible because it attacks the inviolability and dignity of the person.”

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin stated on Oct. 9 that plans to broadcast the execution live are unacceptable. “It is truly incomprehensible that anyone would want to resort to this method in this day and age,” he said.

Broglio also wrote that he was obliging “any Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request to be excused from this action contrary to the teaching of the Church.”

Bishop Daniel E. Garcia of the Diocese of Austin, which encompasses Fort Hood, said the public broadcast of Hasan’s execution “would make a spectacle of death.”

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, wrote of his “shock and great sorrow” of the government’s decision to livestream the execution in an Oct. 9 statement.

Trump also faced backlash from members of both political parties concerning the decision.

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, said in a social media post that “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” calling it “beyond disgusting.”

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Connecticut, called the decision to broadcast the execution “disgusting” and “medieval.”