Vice President JD Vance expressed doubts about whether the firing squad execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed, and indicated he would not watch if it is.
“Well, first of all, I see these announcements. I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” Vance told reporters during a campaign stop in Ohio on Oct. 9.
A day earlier, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth had indicated the plan was to make Hasan’s execution, scheduled for Dec. 3, viewable to the public.
The Pentagon subsequently confirmed it planned to livestream the execution, with more specific details still to come.
“This is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11,” Vance told reporters. “Now, that said, I mean, look, if it’s through livestream, I’m not going to be watching it.”
Hasan was born in the United States and held the rank of major in the U.S. Army on the date of the Fort Hood shooting on Nov. 5, 2009.
Those killed in the 2009 shooting were 12 U.S. soldiers, a civilian physician, and an unborn child.
Thirty-two others sustained wounds during the attack.
During a 2013 military court-martial proceeding, Hasan identified himself as the shooter, described himself as a jihadist, and indicated he regretted his service in the U.S. military and had changed his allegiance.
The court-martial jury found Hasan guilty on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, and recommended he be sentenced to death.
He has remained on the military’s death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, ever since.
Hegseth announced the plan to publicize Hasan’s execution during an interview with Real America’s Voice host Jack Posobiec.
“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth told Posobiec.
Asked whether he was aware if Hasan had lodged any requests or appeals since learning of his execution details, Hegseth said, “Don’t care, we’ll see him on Dec. 3.”
While Hasan’s military execution date is set for Dec. 3, he may be able to put off his death by firing squad through a habeas corpus appeal to the civilian federal court system and a request for a stay of execution.
Hasan would be the first U.S. military execution by firing squad since 1961.
While the United States has held public executions in the past, it has not been common practice for nearly a century. Legal scholars believe the last public execution in the United States occurred in 1936.
The human rights group Amnesty International documented 2,700 executions across 17 countries in 2025. Of that number, only Afghanistan and Iran had made those executions viewable to the public.
Amnesty International has opposed the death penalty, regardless of the underlying offense.
“Livestreaming the taking of a life by firing squad would only compound the cruelty of the death penalty and perpetuate the cycle of violence that the authorities purportedly seek to end,” Justin Mazzola, Amnesty International USA’s deputy director of research, said on Friday.
Kimberly Hayek contributed to this report.
