Trump canceled the live broadcast of the firing squad

US President Donald Trump announced that the execution of Nidal Malik Hassan, who killed 13 US soldiers, will not be public.

President Donald Trump has announced that the execution of Nidal Malik Hassan, who killed 13 American servicemen in a 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, will not be public. Days earlier, Secretary of War Pete Heggeth had promised that the program would be broadcast over the Internet, drawing criticism from lawmakers across party lines.

In a post on Truth Social on Thursday, Trump wrote that the former US Army major "is scheduled to die by firing squad, but the event will not be broadcast." The US president explained that during the webcast of Hasan's execution "it may be a strong deterrent ... a lot of very good, good people mean that people would rather not watch his death via streaming or any other visual means."

Trump noted that the victims' relatives will still have the right to see Hasan's death in person.

According to Axios, citing an unnamed administration official, the US president has grown increasingly skeptical of the idea in recent days, particularly because of all the "negative input" he's reportedly received.

Late last Friday, Trump said in an interview with reporters that "he was not involved in this decision."

Hexett told conservative commentator Jack Pozobic last Thursday that Hasan was to be shot at 1pm on December 3rd - the approximate time of the initial attack - at the same facility where he carried out the massacre.

"We're going to make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for this kind of thing.

It will be the first execution by the US military in more than six decades and the first by an army firing squad since World War II.

The last public execution in the United States took place in 1936, making Hexett's idea of a live broadcast highly controversial.

Republican Sen. Tom Tillis described the proposal as "beyond disgusting," and fellow Rep. Austin Scott, a Republican, wrote in X that "doing live streams is what jihadists do."

Democratic Senator Chris Murphy also likened public executions to those carried out by terrorist groups.

Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, similarly denounced the live-streaming plan as a "brutal promotion of the culture of death."

Born in the United States in 1970 to Palestinian immigrant parents, Hassan trained as a physician before becoming an Army psychiatrist.

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On November 5, 2009, he opened fire on troops at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas, where troops prepare for deployment overseas, with two semi-automatic pistols. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar," Arabic for "God is great," as they attacked.

The military police shot wounded Hasan before he was arrested and left the shooter paralyzed from the waist down.

During his court-martial, Hassan admitted responsibility for the attack, stating that he believed he was acting to protect Muslims from US military action in Afghanistan.

In August 2013, the military court found Hassan guilty of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder. A panel of 13 senior military officers unanimously sentenced him to death later that month.

The US Supreme Court declined to review his conviction in March 2025, and Trump approved the execution earlier this month.