Trump cancels livestream of Fort Hood shooter's execution, which remains set for 3 December

Trump drops the livestream

On Thursday, 15 October 2026, President Donald Trump said on Truth Social that the execution of Nidal Hasan will not be broadcast live, reversing a plan Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced on 8 October. Hasan will still die by firing squad as scheduled, Trump wrote, but the event will not be streamed. Trump said the closest relatives of the victims may attend in person if they choose, and that they deserve to watch justice carried out.

Trump argued that a broadcast could have deterred others by showing how America treats terrorists, yet he conceded that many well-meaning people would prefer not to watch a man die on a screen. The reversal followed days of indignation in the United States and abroad.

Pentagon plan and backlash

Hegseth argued that the public should be able to follow the sentence being carried out so that people understand the consequences of such crimes. The Pentagon had not published the concrete procedures it intended to use. The announced date is 3 December at 13:00 local time at Fort Hood, Texas.

Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch the broadcast, and House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, described a public execution as a potential recruitment tool for future terrorists. Critics in both the Republican and Democratic parties objected to the plan. The administration also faced comparisons with the dictatorial regimes of Iran and Afghanistan.

Religious leaders from Catholic, evangelical, Episcopal and Jewish communities condemned the plan as turning death into a spectacle. Amnesty International called for blocking mirror video streams on the internet. Critics argued that recording and publishing the footage could be used by extremist groups to fuel radicalisation.

Legal and child-welfare concerns

Legal experts noted that the official army regulation does not explicitly ban video distribution, because it was written before streaming existed. They warned that it could allow minors to watch, which would breach a ban in that regulation. A psychologist warned in an online article by physicians that children exposed to such images risk post-traumatic stress. Trump's post confirms that the execution date and firing squad method are unchanged, while the broadcast plan is dropped.

The case and its history

Hasan, a former US Army major and psychiatrist aged 56, opened fire at Fort Hood in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 32. A police officer who intervened shot him during the attack, and he has been partly paralysed since. A military jury sentenced him to death in 2013, and he is held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

At trial Hasan chose to represent himself, called no witnesses, did not testify and did not try to deny the charges. Court-appointed lawyers suspect he wanted the execution carried out. The last generally public execution in the US took place in Kentucky in 1936, when a man was hanged before thousands of spectators, and public shootings were used as deterrents during the American Civil War in the 19th century.