Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has boasted that he will make the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan a public spectacle.
The execution will be “live-streamed,” a move that Hegseth—a self-professed devout Christian—announced in an interview with a far-right YouTuber.
Hasan, 56, an Army psychiatrist who is convicted of killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 in a 2009 mass shooting in Fort Hood, Texas, will be executed by military firing squad on Dec. 3.
Hegseth described the mass murder as “a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks” to the conservative network Real America’s Voice. The defense secretary promised the execution will be public.
The last public execution in the United States was in 1936.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things,” he said.
Hegseth’s promise would mark a dramatic departure from the modern practice of carrying out executions away from public view.
A Pentagon official said there will be a “livestream,” and Hegseth later shared an article to that effect on X, along with the caption: “Correct.”
Hegseth says the execution by firing squad will happen on a Thursday, at 1:00 p.m., which is when Hasan committed his crime.
The U.S. military hasn’t carried out an execution by firing squad since 1945.
“I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II,” Hegseth said. “Which was to understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground.”
Hasan’s execution would also be the first U.S. military execution since a soldier was hanged in 1961.
Rainey Bethea, a 22-year-old Black man, was the last person to be publicly executed in the United States, in 1936. He was convicted of raping and murdering a 70-year-old white woman and was killed by hanging in Owensboro, Kentucky.
The only other countries in the world that have public executions are Iran, with which the United States is at war, Saudi Arabia, North Korea, and Afghanistan. None offer livestreams. The Islamist terror group ISIS infamously broadcast the execution of American and other Western hostages on YouTube.
Trump oversaw 13 federal executions during his first term, making him the most prolific execution president in more than 130 years.
