The decision came after days of speculation on whether the administration would follow through on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s announcement.
By Catholics for Catholics
On Thursday, President Donald Trump canceled plans to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan, after a flurry of stern bipartisan reaction.
Trump said in a post on Truth Social, that he thought streaming the execution “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM,” but that “many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die.”
Still, the families of victims may view the execution “if they so choose,” Trump added, according to a story by the Daily Wire.
Trump’s decision came after days of conjecture on whether the administration would act on Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s announcement that the execution would be live-streamed. Though he thought a live-streamed execution would be a good deterrent, Trump said he decided against it.
“He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” the president shared. “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!”
Trump’s announcement comes after Catholic leaders condemned both the planned execution and live-stream, with Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who leads the Archdiocese for the Military Services, calling for Catholics assigned to the firing squad to request that they be excused. Still, the Pentagon refused to comment on the topic when asked this week by The Daily Wire.
President Trump just scrapped the public livestream of the first military execution in over 65 years. The Trump administration faced controversy over its proposed broadcast of the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth argued that broadcasting the execution would show the serious consequences of terrorism, while Vice President JD Vance expressed doubts about whether it would happen and said he wouldn’t tune in if it did. The proposal drew widespread criticism from the left, human rights groups, and international officials who condemned the idea of turning an execution into a public spectacle. Trump initially supported the broadcast but now says the execution will go forward without a public livestream following backlash at home and abroad.
— Fox News (@FoxNews) October 15, 2026
Vice President JD Vance was asked on Friday by a reporter how he saw the planned public execution as a Catholic. Vance said he would not watch a live-stream and questioned whether the broadcast would happen.
“But what I try to remind people is, look, this is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11, the people that he was meant to treat, the Army soldiers that he was meant to treat for mental illness and other problems, he took them at their most vulnerable and gunned down these people where they lived,” Vance said.
“So 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,” the vice president added.
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