Mike Johnson urges Trump to reverse decision on livestreaming Nidal Hasan execution: ‘Not everybody’s in favor of the idea”

House Speaker Mike Johnson is urging President Donald Trump to walk back his decision to livestream the planned execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad. CBS News reported that Trump had not yet made a final decision on making the execution public.

Johnson said, “The concern would be that you would create a video that then would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists. We’ve got to think through the policy implications of all that. I wouldn’t be watching it if it was aired, but there’s a lot of opinions on that.”

Johnson added that his fellow Republican officials are similarly opposed to the idea. “I think there’s still some time to talk about that,” he said. “I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”

Even Congress is pushing back against that idea

President Trump told reporters that he “absolutely” authorized the execution of Hasan, a US Army major and psychiatrist who killed 12 of his fellow soldiers as well as a civilian on November 5, 2009, at the Texas outpost. CNN reported that Trump and his advisers are discussing whether to call off the airing of the firing squad execution, and had remarked privately that he didn’t initially know Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down, which he sustained during an exchange of gunfire with police during his 2009 attack. 

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said that the Pentagon planned to make Hasan’s execution available to the public. “It’s going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad. It hadn’t been since World War II, since we’ve done that,” Hegseth told conservative influencer Jack Posobiec. “I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was ‘win. ‘”

Multiple Republicans have expressed opposition to livestreaming Hasan’s execution, with Vice President JD Vance saying that if it were broadcast live, “I’m not going to be watching it.” CBS News reported that there has been pressure from Congress not to livestream Nidal Hasan’s execution before Johnson chimed in.

Hasan is said to have targeted soldiers he was set to deploy to Afghanistan and wanted to protect the Taliban and its leaders from the US military. He received a death penalty sentence in 2013 from a military jury made up of 13 officers. The execution is scheduled for December 3.