Vance suggests Nidal Hasan’s execution won’t be livestreamed, contradicting Hegseth

Vice President JD Vance suggested Friday that the federal government would not livestream its planned execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan by firing squad, contradicting the plan announced by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

“First of all, I’ve seen these announcements. I don’t know that that’s going to happen,” Vance told reporters while traveling to a campaign event in Ohio.

He said that if the execution, which is scheduled for December, is livestreamed that he wouldn’t watch it.

“But what I try to remind people is: look, this is a guy who committed, in my view, the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11,” the vice president said.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 in a shooting at Texas’ Fort Hood Army base in 2009.

While visiting the USS Abraham Lincoln as it docked in San Diego on Thursday, Hegseth told conservative news outlet Real America’s Voice that Hasan is “going to get a firing squad of soldiers, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.”

It wasn’t immediately clear Friday why Vance contradicted Hegseth. The White House and Pentagon didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

The decision to publicly show Hasan’s execution has been met with intense backlash from both some Republicans and many Democrats.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., who has said he is considering a run for president in 2028, opposes broadcasting the execution.

“If it were me, I wouldn’t I wouldn’t televise it or publicize it or whatever they’re doing,” Kennedy said Friday while campaigning with GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers in Sterling Heights, Michigan. “I just think it makes — it makes our society coarser, and I wouldn’t do it. But there are arguments, you know, on both sides.”

Sen. John Curtis, R-Utah, wrote in a post on X Friday, “Seneca warned that Rome’s bloody spectacles corrupted the people who watched them. A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,” he said. “Secretary Hegseth’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood execution risks feeding that appetite. The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent. I urge him to reconsider.”

Retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a frequent Trump critic, said in a post on X Thursday, “Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting. Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., wrote, “I absolutely support the sentence of death, but livestreaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that.”

The military’s last execution was in 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was hanged after he was convicted of raping and attempting to kill an 11-year-old girl in Austria. The military last executed someone by firing in 1945, when it put Pvt. Eddie Slovik to death after he was court-martialed for desertion during World War II.