US homeland security chief dismisses security threat from live-streaming execution

A top Trump administration official said on Sunday that the planned live stream execution of the perpetrator of a mass killing of US soldiers would not pose an additional security risk to the United States.

“I don’t see an elevated risk at this point at all because of this,” US Homeland Security chief Markwayne Mullin told CBS News’ Face the Nation, when asked if it risked turning the perpetrator into a martyr for his cause.

“I think people need to understand … if you attack America, we will come after you and we will make sure that the punishment fits the crime,” he added.

Nidal Hasan, 56, a US Army psychiatrist, shot dead 13 people and wounded more than 30 in an al-Qaeda-inspired attack at a military base at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

He would be the first person executed by a US military firing squad since 1945.

The plan to publicly broadcast his death by firing squad, scheduled for December 3, was first put forward by Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Pentagon on Thursday, drawing condemnation in the United States and beyond.

US President Donald Trump later left uncertain whether the execution would be publicly broadcast.

“They are making a determination about that but he will be killed,” Trump said of the plans. “I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes.”

When Mullin was pressed on Sunday with questions about live-streaming, he told CBS: “No one has to watch it if they don’t choose to.”

Trump “leads this country with a very, very, very direct, forward, straight hand, and he’s restoring America values and bringing us … where America should be”.

Vice-President J.D. Vance has cast doubt on whether the Pentagon will live-stream the execution and if it did, he said: “I’m not going to be watching it.”

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham condemned the possibility of a public execution in the US as “abhorrent”.

“I certainly would never support that. So, I’m happy to make my view clear.

“It’s something that I can’t say I ever want to see anywhere in the world,” he told The Rest is Politics podcast.

Cabinet Minister Bridget Phillipson previously said she found the plans “disturbing” and that she was “proud that our country did away with the death penalty a very, very long time ago”.

The UK equalities minister told the BBC: “The view of the government is always that we’re repulsed to the death penalty, my personal view is that I’m opposed to the death penalty.

“And I find that rather disturbing is my honest reaction.”

She added: “It’s a matter for the US government.

“They are a close ally, does that mean that we support everything the US government does? No, but that’s not for us to involve ourselves in what are ultimately questions of US domestic policy.”