WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson encouraged President Trump Monday to reverse his decision to livestream the planned execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad — adding that many of his fellow Republicans are similarly squeamish about the idea.
“The concern would be that you would create a video that then would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists,” Johnson (R-La.) told CBS News. “We’ve got to think through the policy implications of all that. I wouldn’t be watching it if it was aired, but there’s a lot of opinions on that.”
“I think there’s still some time to talk about that,” the speaker added. “I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced plans last week to make the execution of Hasan available to the public, drawing bipartisan backlash.
“It’s going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad. It hadn’t been since World War II, since we’ve done that,” Hegseth told conservative influencer Jack Posobiec. “I kind of like the mentality we had in World War II, which was ‘win.’”
But Vice President JD Vance told reporters that if Hasan’s execution was livestreamed, he was “not gonna be watching it.”
President Trump told reporters Friday that he “absolutely” authorized the execution of Hasan — a US Army major and psychiatrist who killed 12 of his fellow soldiers as well as a civilian on Nov. 5, 2009, at the Texas outpost, wounding 32 others — but later added that he “will make a decision ultimately” about whether to broadcast the stream.
Hasan, now 56, was shot and paralyzed from the chest down during his rampage. Critics have argued that executing him would fulfill his desire for jihadist martyrdom.
Multiple Republican lawmakers had come out against the idea of a public execution of Hasan before Johnson weighed in.
“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, posted on X Friday.
“A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,” Sen. John Curtis (R-Utah) wrote on X. “Secretary Hegseth’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite.”
“Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do,” added frequent Hegseth critic Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC). “It should not be happening in America.”
“An execution shouldn’t be a live-streamed spectacle,” Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.) contended on X. “The focus should be on justice for the victims and their families, not turning an execution into entertainment. Their pain deserves respect, not a public show.”
Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 by a military jury made up of 13 officers. He had represented himself at trial and claimed to have attacked the US to try and defeat its “war on Islam.”
The execution is scheduled for Dec. 3.
