U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to cancel plans to livestream the Dec. 3 execution by firing squad of former U.S. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan. The decision came after widespread criticism, both in the U.S. and globally. Trump had previously said he supported broadcasting Hasan’s execution, while Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch it.
“I think 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 but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.”
Trump also said the families of the victims can still view the execution in person if they wish. “That said, the execution may be viewed in person by the immediate families of the victims, if they so choose. They deserve to witness JUSTICE!”
The backlash for the livestream was apparent
In the same post, Trump once again shifted the blame to former President Barack Obama for the Fort Hood shooting. “Barack Hussein Obama’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) intercepted electronic communications between Hasan and the radical Yemeni-American cleric, Anwar al-Awlaki,” he noted in his Truth Social post. “When reviewed by his FBI terrorism task force, investigators concluded that Hasan’s emails were not a threat. This assessment of the Obama Administration’s actions was later considered to be a key intelligence failure.”
Hasan, who is paralyzed from the waist down, killed 13 unarmed U.S. military personnel and injured 32 others. His execution by firing squad will be the first military execution in more than 60 years. Hasan said during his court-martial in 2013 that his actions were meant to protect Muslims and the Taliban in Afghanistan from the U.S. military.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth previously 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.’” “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,” he added.
Several Republican officials, including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), expressed their disagreement with the proposal to livestream Hasan’s execution: “The concern would be that you would create a video that then would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson told CBS News earlier this week. “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.”
Published: Oct 16, 2026 11:15 am