Fort Hood Shooter Execution: Trump Cancels Livestream

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that the Fort Hood shooter execution will not be livestreamed, reversing a Pentagon plan to broadcast the firing-squad death of Nidal Malik Hasan to the public. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said the execution remains scheduled for December 3, but the event will not be streamed or shown on any visual device.

Trump said the immediate families of the 13 victims may watch the execution in person if they choose. He described Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding dozens in the November 5, 2009, shooting at the Texas Army base, as a “very bad and evil man,” according to posts cited by CNN and USA Today.

“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump wrote, according to multiple outlets that published his post. “He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.”

Trump Reverses Hegseth’s Livestream Plan

The reversal came one week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced on October 8 that the Pentagon intended to livestream Hasan’s execution, describing it as a “public” event. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it,” Hegseth said at the time, according to USA Today. “People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”

Hegseth had set the execution for December 3 at 1 p.m. Central Time at Fort Hood, Texas — the same day of the week, time, and location as Hasan’s 2009 attack, according to Al Jazeera. CNN reported earlier this week that Trump and his advisers had been debating whether to call off the broadcast plan, and that Trump had remarked privately that he did not initially know Hasan is paralyzed from the waist down and uses a wheelchair after being shot by responding officers during the attack.

The livestream proposal drew intense bipartisan backlash. A group of 72 retired U.S. generals, admirals, and other high-ranking military officers issued an open letter warning that the broadcast could turn Hasan into a “martyr,” according to The Times. House Speaker Mike Johnson and Vice President JD Vance both said they would not watch, USA Today reported.

Religious leaders also condemned the proposal. Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, the Catholic archbishop for the U.S. military, said in an October 12 statement that Catholic soldiers assigned to the firing squad should ask to be “excused,” USA Today reported. The National Association of Evangelicals warned a livestream risked turning “one of the state’s most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle,” its president, Walter Kim, told the Daily Caller News Foundation.

Details of the Fort Hood Shooter Execution

The Fort Hood shooter execution is scheduled for December 3, 2026, at Fort Hood in Texas. According to the U.S. Army and reporting by USA Today, it will be the first U.S. military execution in 65 years and the first execution of a soldier by firing squad since 1945, during World War II. The Times of India reported that Trump said the victims’ immediate family members would be allowed to witness it in person: “They deserve to witness JUSTICE!”

Some legal experts also questioned whether a livestream could violate domestic laws on transmitting graphic material and whether minors could be kept from accessing the broadcast, while critics said a public broadcast could glorify the attacker and inspire copycats, Al Jazeera reported.

• Who: Nidal Malik Hasan, 56, a former Army major and psychiatrist.
• What: Execution by Army firing squad, the first by the U.S. military since 1945.
• When: December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. Central Time.
• Where: Fort Hood, Texas, the site of the 2009 attack.
• Streaming: No public broadcast; immediate family members of victims may attend in person.

The 2009 Fort Hood Attack and Hasan’s Trial

On November 5, 2009, Hasan opened fire on fellow service members at a readiness center at Fort Hood, killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others. Keely Cahill Vanacker, whose father Michael Cahill was killed in the shooting, told The Times that a livestream would turn “tragedy into entertainment.”

Hasan represented himself at his 2013 court-martial and admitted he was the gunman. On August 23, 2013, a military jury convicted him on all charges after a seven-hour deliberation, and five days later a U.S. military court sentenced him to death.

Trump approved the execution order in early October, according to a memo Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle shared on X, as reported by Political.org. Hasan’s paperwork had been moving through the military bureaucracy toward presidential review for months, with the Daily Caller News Foundation reporting in September 2025 that the Pentagon was preparing to seek Trump’s final approval.

No Public Execution in the U.S. Since 1936

Had the livestream gone ahead, it would have been the first public execution in the United States in 90 years. A government-ordered public execution has not taken place in the U.S. since August 14, 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, Al Jazeera reported. Successive administrations have criticized foreign governments for conducting public executions, the outlet noted.

USA Today reported that the December execution will be the first military execution and the first use of a firing squad in the United States in decades — a milestone that has revived a debate most Americans have not had to consider in generations: not only whether the state should execute a condemned person, but whether the public should be invited to watch.

What’s Next

The execution remains on schedule for December 3 despite the canceled broadcast. This is a developing story.