US Vice President JD Vance said he was unsure whether the Pentagon would proceed with plans to livestream the firing-squad execution of a former US Army psychiatrist, a proposal that has sparked widespread condemnation.
As the controversy surrounding Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan intensified, former US officials warned that broadcasting the execution could provide terrorists with a powerful recruiting tool. A senior US Catholic bishop described the proposal as “barbaric.”
- Advertisement -
“I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” Mr Vance told reporters in Cincinnati when asked about the livestream.
He said that, if the execution scheduled for 3 December is broadcast, he would “not be watching it”.
At a White House event, Mr Trump said Hasan deserved to be executed by firing squad and called him “a maniac.”
The Republican president has not said whether he supports showing the execution on a livestream.
Death penalty specialists said the broadcast would be the first known livestream or television broadcast of a lawful execution.
President Donald Trump approved the execution by firing squad
‘For all to see’
Mr Hegseth, who was appointed by Mr Trump, said yesterday that making the execution public would show that “there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Mr Hegseth also reposted a 2013 comment by Mr Trump, possibly referring to the Boston Marathon bombers, which said: “Should be public execution for all to see — you will end this bullsh*t fast!”
The Pentagon declined to say whether relatives of people killed in Hasan’s attack would be invited to attend the execution, as is customary for civilian executions.
It is not yet known how the army would choose the shooters or which procedures would govern the execution.
The Pentagon said further details would be released at a later date.
The plan was condemned by a senior US Catholic official.
“This decision is a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered,” said Archbishop Paul Coakley, president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.
The Catholic Church opposes capital punishment. Mr Vance converted to Catholicism and has written a book about his faith.
Mr Hegseth belongs to a conservative evangelical denomination, has used Christian language while discussing the Iran war and has led prayer services at the Pentagon.
He has dismissed criticism of the war from Pope Leo.
Hasan is set to become the first person executed by firing squad by the US military since 1945.
Hasan, an American-born Muslim, said during his 2013 trial that he carried out the shootings in an effort to halt what he described as a US war on Islam.
“Whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Mr Vance told reporters.
Pete Hegseth told the Human Events Daily programme ‘we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it’
Joe Kent, who resigned this year as Mr Trump’s head of the US National Counterterrorism Center, warned that using a livestream to deter extremism could have the opposite effect.
“Streaming his execution is not just a stain on our morality — it also gives the terrorists free propaganda that they will use to radicalise & recruit more terrorists,” Mr Kent wrote on social media.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis said on social media that Hasan should be executed, but called a livestream “beyond disgusting” and likened it to something “oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do.”
Senator Jack Reed, the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a former Army officer, said broadcasting the execution would give the shooter additional attention.
“This is a gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters. It is absolutely shameful and damaging to America’s interests and core values,” Mr Reed said in a statement.
We need your consent to load this rte-player contentWe use rte-player to manage extra content that can set cookies on your device and collect data about your activity. Please review their details and accept them to load the content.Manage Preferences
The UN human rights office also condemned the decision.
“Public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment,” Shabia Mantoo, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,told a news briefing in Geneva.
Ms Mantoo said the decision would also “breach the absolute prohibition of torture.”
The plan to livestream the execution comes amid renewed debate in the US over capital punishment, after a Tennessee woman sentenced to death for a 1995 murder survived a failed lethal injection last week.
Christa Pike survived two doses of pentobarbital as Tennessee officials attempted to put her to death
The controversy has intensified ahead of the 3 November US midterm elections, as polls suggest Mr Trump’s party could lose control of the House of Representatives and potentially the Senate to the opposition Democrats.
The execution is due to take place at the same sprawling military base where Hasan used a handgun to attack people inside a medical facility.
A military jury sentenced Hasan to death after convicting him on 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder.
The attack occurred weeks before Hasan, now 56, was due to deploy with US forces to Afghanistan.
Police shot Hasan during his arrest, leaving him partially paralysed and dependent on a wheelchair.
Death Penalty Action, which opposes capital punishment, said Hasan’s execution would be the first military execution since 1961, when the condemned prisoner was hanged.
The Death Penalty Information Center said the last known executions by US military firing squads took place in 1945.
According to the Death Penalty Information Center, at least five states have firing squads on the books. South Carolina carried out the first such execution in the US in 15 years in 2025.
