{"id":927272,"date":"2026-10-10T03:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/927272\/"},"modified":"2026-10-10T03:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T03:08:08","slug":"barbaric-us-lawmakers-condemn-plan-to-livestream-nidal-hasans-execution-military-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/927272\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Barbaric\u2019: US lawmakers condemn plan to livestream Nidal Hasan\u2019s execution | Military News"},"content":{"rendered":"

United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has received widespread condemnation over his announcement to livestream the execution<\/a> of a man who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas.<\/p>\n

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in the US Congress were quick to react in the hours after the Pentagon chief told a conservative news outlet on Thursday that former US Army Major Nidal Hasan\u2019s death by firing squad would be made public.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

\u201cHasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting\u201d, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who recently expressed regret for his 2025 vote to confirm Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, said on social media. \u201cPublic executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.\u201d<\/p>\n

Republican Congressman Austin Scott, who serves on the US House Armed Services Committee, also opposed the announcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,\u201d the Georgia lawmaker said on X.<\/p>\n

Scott\u2019s Republican colleague in the US House, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, said, \u201cThe focus should be on justice for the victims and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTheir pain deserves respect, not a public show,\u201d Bresnahan said.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera has not heard back from the three Republican senators \u2013 Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski \u2013 who opposed Hegseth\u2019s confirmation.<\/p>\n

Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced<\/a> to death in August 2013 after a military jury found him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder for the shooting at Fort Hood.<\/p>\n

On Monday, US President Donald Trump authorised the use of a firing squad in Hasan\u2019s execution. Hegseth said Thursday that it would take place at the military base on December 3 at 1pm local time (19:00 GMT), the same time the 2009 shooting took place.<\/p>\n

Later on Friday, Trump confirmed he \u201cabsolutely\u201d approved of the execution of the Fort Hood shooter but said he had not made a determination on showing the death via livestream.<\/p>\n

US Senator Jack Reed, who serves as the top Democrat on the US Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the Trump administration on Friday to \u201creconsider\u201d the decision, saying it is a \u201cgift to anti-American terrorist recruiters\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cLive-streaming an execution is a barbaric spectacle,\u201d the Rhode Island lawmaker told Al Jazeera in a statement. \u201cThis is yet another stunt by Secretary Hegseth to distract from his tenure\u2019s repeated failings which have only weakened our national security and standing in the world\u201d.<\/p>\n

Reed added, \u201cIt is absolutely shameful and damaging to America\u2019s interests and core values.\u201d<\/p>\n

His fellow Democrat, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, rolled his eyes and appeared visibly shocked during a CNN interview on Thursday when asked about Hegseth\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s disgusting\u201d, Murphy told CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett. \u201cIs he mimicking ISIS [ISIL] executions? I understand that, in this country, we have the death penalty, but public executions [are] medieval\u201d.<\/p>\n

But not every lawmaker is opposed to the idea.<\/p>\n

Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee said on social media that \u201cpublic execution is what this terrorist deserves\u201d, calling Hegseth\u2019s decision \u201cexcellent\u201d.<\/p>\n

Army policy<\/p>\n

US Vice President JD Vance, during a trip to his home state of Ohio on Friday, told reporters he won\u2019t \u201cbe watching\u201d the livestream of Hasan\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

\u201cI see these announcements. I don\u2019t know that that\u2019s actually going to happen\u201d, Vance, who served in the US Marine Corps, said. \u201cLet\u2019s sort of see \u2026 when he\u2019s executed.\u201d<\/p>\n

US Army policy limits who may witness military executions. According to regulation issued by the military branch, no person under the age of 18 may witness an execution. Victims, their family members, the prisoner\u2019s lawyer and at least two members of the news media are among the limited number of people who are allowed to view.<\/p>\n

For Hasan\u2019s execution to be \u201cpublic\u201d, Reed said Trump would have to approve a waiver.<\/p>\n

When asked whether Trump would grant that permission, the White House referred Al Jazeera to the Pentagon.<\/p>\n

The head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast communications in the country, said on Friday he would defer to the Pentagon on whether US networks could air the execution.<\/p>\n

\u201cUltimately, we\u2019re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and, you know, his decisions on how to move forward with this,\u201d FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a CNBC interview.<\/p>\n

An official at the Defense Department told Al Jazeera that the agency has \u201cnothing additional to provide\u201d.<\/p>\n

The United Nations has strongly condemned the livestreaming of Hasan\u2019s execution, stating that it would breach international law.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the UN human rights office told the news agency AFP that broadcasting the execution would be \u201ctantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has received widespread condemnation over his announcement to livestream the execution…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":927273,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[238873,1376,43,14207,44,41,39,42,40,772,1690],"class_list":["post-927272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-death-penalty","tag-donald-trump","tag-headlines","tag-military","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-united-states","tag-us-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=927272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/927272\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/927273"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=927272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=927272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=927272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}