GUY ADAMS: Is Trump's plan to livestream the execution of an Islamist terrorist a shameless bid to shore up his support ahead of vital elections?

If Donald Trump gets his way, it will be a shot that is not just heard but also seen around the world.

That appears to be the US President's plan following news that the execution of a 56-year-old Islamist terrorist named Nidal Hasan is to be broadcast to the world via livestream.

Hasan, a former army psychiatrist who murdered 13 unarmed soldiers at the Fort Hood US military base in Texas in 2009, is due to meet his maker on December 3.

Trump, who signed what was effectively his death warrant last month, had previously stipulated that he should be killed the old-fashioned way: by a military firing squad.

Things then took a surreal turn on Thursday, when the US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, revealed during an interview on a US aircraft carrier that the public will be able to watch the whole thing online.

'We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public,' he said. 'It was a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks and so 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 are serious consequences for these types of things.'

The Trump administration's plan, which – if carried out – will make America the only country aside from Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan to carry out public executions, sparked predictable controversy yesterday, with both critics and supporters flooding America's airwaves to make themselves heard.

Nidal Hasan, a former army psychiatrist who murdered 13 unarmed soldiers at the Fort Hood US military base in Texas in 2009, will be executed on December 3

How Hasan carried out his atrocity in 2009

Fans of the move, who include many of Hasan's victims, believe it represents a sort of natural justice. 'You live by the sword, you die by the sword,' remarked retired Staff Sergeant Alonzo Lunsford, who was shot several times, including once in the head, during the incident in which 31 others were injured.

Opponents, who hail from both sides of the party-political divide, sang a different tune. 'Beyond disgusting,' was the verdict of Republican Senator Thom Tillis, who hails from North Carolina. 

'Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.'

Chris Murphy, a Democrat senator, branded the scheme 'medieval' and 'disgusting', asking a TV interviewer: 'Is he [Trump] mimicking ISIS executions? That's what America has become? That's pretty extraordinary.'

The plan received a more cerebral pushback in intelligence circles. Joe Kent, a retired Green Beret veteran who, until March, was Director of America's National Counterterrorism Centre, spoke for many in his field by arguing that the high-profile gesture could prove to be dangerously counter-productive.

'There is no doubt Hasan deserves to die. His crimes were demonic and unforgivable and death by firing squad is borderline too merciful,' he said yesterday. 

'But broadcasting his execution is beneath the dignity & decency of our nation… streaming his execution is not just a stain on our morality – it also gives the terrorists free propaganda that they will use to radicalise and recruit more terrorists like Hasan.'

Even Vice President JD Vance seemed against the livestreaming. While campaigning in Ohio he told reporters: 'I don't know that that's actually going to happen. If it's ultimately livestreamed, I'm not going to be watching it.'

On the diplomatic front, various foreign governments have also characterised the plan as counter-productive, with some saying it violates international law.

Authorities in Australia and New Zealand reacted to the news by seeking to prevent citizens from being able to access internet sites where the footage is screened, while in London cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson told Sky News that she regards the whole thing as 'rather disturbing'.

America being the spiritual home of litigation, various courtroom challenges are already in the offing. Lawyers point out that a rule called Army Regulation 190-55, which specifies the types of people who are permitted to witness a military execution, specifically bars minors from watching the punishment.

Plans to set up a livestream, which will in theory be accessible by anyone who has an internet connection, could therefore be contested in court, they believe.

The 13 service personnel murdered by the Islamic terrorist Nidal Hasan

Sgt. Fanuaee Vea (L) embraces Pvt. Savannah Green outside Fort Hood on November 5, 2009

There is every chance that Trump would welcome a legal challenge, however. For his decision to turn Hasan's fate into a subject of public debate may very well form part of a wider plan.

The US President, a longstanding supporter of the death penalty who, in his first term, executed more federal prisoners than any predecessor for 120 years, is currently in an awkward political spot. 

A bulletin-topping news story that draws attention away from awkward headlines about both the ongoing Iran War and his own declining popularity ratings, which recently hit an all-time low of 32 per cent, may therefore seem like a welcome diversion.

The timing of the move is significant because a crucial set of mid-term elections will be held next month. They could see his Republican Party lose control of both the Senate and House of Representatives, making him a 'lame duck' for his last two years in office.

In other words, by creating headline-grabbing controversy, in which he is positioned as being tough on terror, Trump may see a chance to not only generate enthusiasm among the MAGA faithful but goad Democrats into appearing soft on crime.

Interestingly, Texas, where Hasan committed his crime and is scheduled to meet his death, is at the centre of a particularly high-stakes electoral battle.

Traditionally a Republican stronghold, it has been tilting Left-wards for years, thanks partly to an ever-growing number of Latino voters. Democrat candidate James Talarico is currently neck and neck in a race to become the party's first member of the US Senate to represent the state in more than 30 years.

'He's getting the death penalty by firing squad. And by the way, Talafreako opposes that,' Trump told a rally this week, using his derogatory nickname for Talarico.

Elsewhere in the US, support for capital punishment is in long-term decline. But it still enjoys the support of between a half and two-thirds of voters, depending on which poll you believe.

That may, in turn, explain why Republicans also seemed relaxed about last month's chaos in Tennessee, where their bungling administration botched efforts to conduct a lethal injection to Death Row inmate Christa Pike.

Pike, a convicted murderer who was to become the first woman to be executed in the state for more than 200 years, was twice injected with a supposedly lethal dose of pentobarbital, only to remain very much alive. 

Lawyers for the inmate, who is shackled to her hospital bed, said on Wednesday that she had woken up 'angry and confused'. Tennessee has suspended executions while it establishes what exactly went wrong.

Trump, who signed what was effectively his death warrant last month, had previously stipulated that he should be killed the old-fashioned way: by a military firing squad

The US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, revealed during an interview on a US aircraft carrier that the public will be able to watch the whole execution online

If asked to pass comment on this debacle, Trump may very well argue that Tennessee should have listened to his advice about the most effective way to carry out executions. 

In 2023 he expressed a desire to bring back firing squads, hangings and even the guillotine, should he retake office, in order to reduce the number of prisoners marooned on Death Row.

Regarding the somewhat surreal debate that was blowing up yesterday, almost everyone agreed on one thing: that Hasan is a seriously nasty piece of work.

He carried out his 'lone wolf' attack in November 2009, opening fire on defenceless colleagues inside Fort Hood's Soldier Readiness Processing Center, where troops were undergoing medical checks and preparing for deployment to Afghanistan.

Armed with a laser-sighted handgun, he killed 13 people, including a pregnant soldier, and wounded 32.

Witnesses reported that he shouted 'Allahu akbar', meaning 'God is great' in Arabic, during the killing spree, before being confronted then shot by a heroic female police officer named Kimberly Munley.

I covered the aftermath of that terrible incident as a foreign correspondent based in the US. In addition to Munley's heroics, reports focused on how Hasan carried out the cowardly attack, bringing 420 rounds of ammunition to work, stuffed into his pockets in paper towels to prevent their cases from jingling.

At his subsequent court martial, the US-born killer decided to represent himself and called no witnesses in his own defence. He claimed to be a soldier who had 'switched sides' and wanted to protect Islamic insurgents overseas from the US military.

During the prosecution's opening statements, it emerged that he had exchanged emails with a rabble-rousing cleric named Anwar al-Awlaki, who had once been based at a Virginia mosque frequented by Hasan's family but had since moved to Yemen. Al-Awlaki was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen in 2011.

The jury who found Hasan guilty unanimously agreed that he should face execution. Confined to a wheelchair, thanks to injuries he sustained during the terror attack, he has been held at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas ever since, seeking to challenge his death sentence via the courts.

His legal options weren't exhausted until last March, when the US Supreme Court declined to review the conviction. His execution on December 3 will take place at Fort Hood, the scene of his crime, at 1.30pm, which is roughly when he carried out the attack.

The main gate at the U.S. Army post at Fort Hood, Texas

The Trump administration's plan – if carried out – will make America the only country aside from Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan to carry out public executions

Regardless of whether the livestream goes ahead, the occasion will be one for the history books. America's last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Private John Bennett was executed by hanging at Fort Leavenworth, after being convicted of raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl.

The last one carried out by firing squad was in 1945, when Private Eddie Slovik was shot in France after being convicted of desertion during World War II. He remains the only US soldier executed for desertion during that war.

On the public execution front, America has a chequered history. Extra-judicial lynchings in the southern states, often by white mobs targeting Black Americans, drew large crowds well into the 20th century.

The last legally sanctioned public execution took place in 1936 when about 20,000 people gathered in Owensboro, Kentucky, to attend the hanging of Rainey Bethea, a young black man who had been convicted of raping a white woman.

That, of course, was 90 years ago. Asked whether Hasan had made a final request or reached out to Trump about this week's decision, Hegseth gave an eight-word response: 'Don't care. We'll see him on December 3.'