United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has received widespread condemnation over his announcement to livestream the execution of a man who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle in the US Congress were quick to react in the hours after the Pentagon chief told a conservative news outlet on Thursday that former US Army Major Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would be made public.
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“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting”, Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who recently expressed regret for his 2025 vote to confirm Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, said on social media. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”
Republican Congressman Austin Scott, who serves on the US House Armed Services Committee, also opposed the announcement.
“I absolutely support the sentence of death, but live-streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” the Georgia lawmaker said on X.
Scott’s Republican colleague in the US House, Congressman Rob Bresnahan, said, “The focus should be on justice for the victims and their families.”
“Their pain deserves respect, not a public show,” Bresnahan said.
Al Jazeera has not heard back from the three Republican senators – Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski – who opposed Hegseth’s confirmation.
Hasan, a former US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death in August 2013 after a military jury found him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder for the shooting at Fort Hood.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump authorised the use of a firing squad in Hasan’s execution. Hegseth said Thursday that it would take place at the military base on December 3 at 1pm local time (19:00 GMT), the same time the 2009 shooting took place.
US Senator Jack Reed, who serves as the top Democrat on the US Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the Trump administration on Friday to “reconsider” the decision, saying it is a “gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters”.
“Live-streaming an execution is a barbaric spectacle,” the Rhode Island lawmaker told Al Jazeera in a statement. “This is yet another stunt by Secretary Hegseth to distract from his tenure’s repeated failings which have only weakened our national security and standing in the world”.
Reed added, “It is absolutely shameful and damaging to America’s interests and core values.”
His fellow Democrat, Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, rolled his eyes and appeared visibly shocked during a CNN interview on Thursday when asked about Hegseth’s decision.
“That’s disgusting”, Murphy told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “Is he mimicking ISIS [ISIL] executions? I understand that, in this country, we have the death penalty, but public executions [are] medieval”.
But not every lawmaker is opposed to the idea.
Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee said on social media that “public execution is what this terrorist deserves”, calling Hegseth’s decision “excellent”.
Army policy
US Vice President JD Vance, during a trip to his home state of Ohio on Friday, told reporters he won’t “be watching” the livestream of Hasan’s death.
“I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen”, Vance, who served in the US Marine Corps, said. “Let’s sort of see … when he’s executed.”
US Army policy limits who may witness military executions. According to regulation issued by the military branch, no person under the age of 18 may witness an execution. Victims, their family members, the prisoner’s lawyer and at least two members of the news media are among the limited number of people who are allowed to view.
For Hasan’s execution to be “public”, Reed said Trump would have to approve a waiver.
The White House did not respond when asked whether the president would grant the Defense Department that permission.
The head of the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates broadcast communications in the country, said on Friday he would defer to the Pentagon on whether US networks could air the execution.
“Ultimately, we’re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and, you know, his decisions on how to move forward with this,” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a CNBC interview.
An official at the Defense Department told Al Jazeera that the agency has “nothing additional to provide”.
The United Nations has strongly condemned the livestreaming of Hasan’s execution, stating that it would breach international law.
A spokesperson for the UN human rights office told the news agency AFP that broadcasting the execution would be “tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture”.
