{"id":369118,"date":"2026-10-09T18:26:15","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:26:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/369118\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T18:26:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T18:26:15","slug":"trump-backs-public-firing-squad-execution-of-fort-hood-killer-deserves-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/369118\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump backs public firing squad execution of Fort Hood killer: ‘Deserves it’"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump on Friday backed the Department of War\u2019s decision to execute the Fort Hood mass shooter by firing squad<\/a> \u2014 though Vice President JD Vance said he won\u2019t watch a planned Pentagon livestream.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re giving a man the death penalty who killed 14 soldiers a couple of years ago,\u201d the president said Friday after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth made waves by announcing the execution would be broadcast live<\/a> on Dec. 3.<\/p>\n

\u201cDeath penalty through firing squad \u2014 and, uh, and he deserves it. Killed and wounded many, many people. Maniac.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009, inside a medical building where he was serving as an Army psychiatrist, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Reuters<\/p>\n

Trump didn\u2019t volunteer his thoughts on the unusual plan to broadcast the punishment of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan<\/a>, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others<\/a> on Nov. 5, 2009, inside a medical building at the Texas base.<\/p>\n

Vance, traveling for campaign appearances in Ohio, said he\u2019s unconvinced that the execution actually will be viewable by the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know that that\u2019s actually going to happen,\u201d Vance said, adding, \u201cIf it\u2019s ultimately livestreamed, I\u2019m not going to be watching it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hasan shouted \u201cAllahu Akbar,\u201d Arabic for \u201cGod is great,\u201d as he fired at his fellow troops with a laser-sighted handgun,\u00a0later confessing that the shooting was meant to stop US forces from going to Afghanistan and killing his fellow Muslims.<\/p>\n

He\u00a0was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and he was sentenced to death following a 2013 trial.<\/p>\n

Pentagon officials have confirmed that Hasan\u2019s execution by firing squad will take place at Fort Hood, the scene of the crime.<\/p>\n

President Trump Friday backed the Department of War\u2019s decision to execute Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad. AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re gonna make sure that people are able to watch it, that it\u2019s public, because people need to understand that there\u2019s serious consequences for these types of things,\u201d Hegseth said.<\/p>\n

\u201cArmy major betrays his country, radical Islamist kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood. Of course we\u2019re doing it at Fort Hood,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

The last military execution by firing squad occurred during World War II, and some Republicans have expressed discomfort with the idea.<\/p>\n

The last military execution by firing squad occurred during World War II. Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSeneca warned that Rome\u2019s bloody spectacles corrupted the people who watched them. A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,\u201d said Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) in a statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cSecretary Hegseth\u2019s plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite,\u201d Curtis added. \u201cThe victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent. I urge him to reconsider.\u201d<\/p>\n

Former Trump administration officials have also spoken out, with ex-National Counterterrorism Center Director Joe Kent calling the planned execution \u201ca stain on our morality.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201c[I]t also gives the terrorists free propaganda that they will use to radicalize & recruit more terrorists like Hassan [sic],\u201d Kent said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But an Army sergeant who survived the bloody massacre after being shot seven times has said he looks forward to attending Hasan\u2019s execution\u00a0to \u201clook at him in his eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna be there [to watch] and before they pull the trigger, I want him to look at me in my eyes and I look at him in his eyes, and I want him to know, \u2018Dude you failed. I\u2019m still here,\u2019\u201d Alonzo Lunsford told the BBC<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The last execution of a US service member took place in 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged after being convicted of the rape and attempted murder of an 11-year-old girl at a base in Austria.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON \u2014 President Trump on Friday backed the Department of War\u2019s decision to execute the Fort Hood mass…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5336,153,2440,23521,136298,9,11,10,1351,87,58],"class_list":["post-369118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-army","tag-donald-trump","tag-executions","tag-firing-squad","tag-fort-hood","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-headlines","tag-new-york-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-politics","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}