Nidal Hasan gunned down thirteen people and wounded dozens more at Fort Hood while screaming Allahu Akbar.
The Pentagon then promised Fort Hood families and every American watching could finally see him die by firing squad.
Trump personally overruled the Pentagon's plan less than two days later for one very specific reason.
Hegseth Announced a Public Execution and Trump Shut It Down
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Real America's Voice that Hasan's December 3 execution would be public.
"We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public," Hegseth said.
The Pentagon confirmed the livestream the very next day.
Then Trump went on Truth Social and ended it himself.
"He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed," Trump wrote.
Trump said broadcasting Hasan's death "might have been a strong deterrent" for terrorists watching around the world.
But he drew the line at forcing millions of Americans to witness it.
"Many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device," Trump wrote.
The families of the thirteen people Hasan murdered will still get to watch in person if they choose.
"They deserve to witness JUSTICE!" Trump wrote.
Fort Hood survivor Alonzo Lunsford, shot in the head during the 2009 rampage, plans to be there when Hasan dies.
"You live by the sword, you die by the sword," Lunsford said.
Lunsford said attending would give victims' families "a chance to close a chapter" that Hasan tore open in 2009.
The Intelligence Failure Nobody in the Obama White House Wanted to Admit
Hasan did not come out of nowhere.
The FBI had Hasan's messages to terrorist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki sitting in a file for years while he kept treating American soldiers as an Army psychiatrist.
Trump's post put the blame exactly where it belongs: an Obama White House that had the warning signs and buried them anyway.
Those people are dead because Washington looked at a man trading messages with a terrorist recruiter and decided it was not worth stopping.
Hasan walked into a room full of unarmed soldiers getting ready to ship out and started shooting.
A bullet from law enforcement ended the rampage and put Hasan in a wheelchair for life.
He later fired his attorneys and represented himself at his 2013 court-martial.
A jury convicted him on all forty-two counts and sent him to military death row.
Hasan could still try to drag this out for months by filing a habeas corpus challenge in civilian court.
The Botched South Carolina Firing Squad That Has Experts Watching Fort Hood Closely
Fordham law professor Deborah Denno calls the firing squad "the least inhumane method of execution" America has.
She says prisoners suffer less pain from bullets than they typically do from lethal injection.
Denno points to Tennessee inmate Christa Pike, who survived two pentobarbital doses before her execution had to be called off.
"We have an endless supply of people who are experts in shooting," Denno said, which tracks with the drug shortages that have turned lethal injection into a logistical mess for death penalty states.
But firing squads can go wrong too.
South Carolina executed Mikal Mahdi by firing squad in April 2025, and it turned into exactly that nightmare.
Dr. Jonathan Arden, the defense pathologist, said the shooters missed their target and hit Mahdi with only two of the three prescribed bullets.
That failure prolonged his death instead of ending it instantly.
Denno calls the outcome "a really troublesome outcome" and says what happens to Hasan on December 3 will decide whether firing squads spread across American death rows.
America saw only two firing squad executions before the Mahdi case, one in 1877 and another in 1951.
The country has not carried out a military execution of any kind in sixty-five years.
The last one was Army Private John Bennett, hanged in 1961.
Six Men on Military Death Row Are Watching December 3 Closely
Hasan is one of six men sitting on military death row at Fort Leavenworth, and every one of them just got a preview of how this ends.
That is the difference between a commander in chief who actually commands and a Defense Department that needed a Truth Social post to figure out what the country could stomach.
Trump still wants terrorists overseas to see American justice land fast and certain, which is exactly why he floated the livestream in the first place.
He just refused to make ordinary Americans pay the emotional price for sending that message.
On December 3, Hasan finally faces the consequence a squeamish Washington delayed for more than a decade.
Sources:
- Stephen Sorace, "Trump Rules Out Livestream for Nidal Hasan Firing Squad Execution," Fox News, October 15, 2026.
- Michael Ruiz, "Fort Hood Shooter's Firing Squad Could Usher in New Era of Executions Across US, Expert Says," Fox News, October 11, 2026.
- Madison Colombo, "Fort Hood Survivor Shot in Head Vows to Watch Terrorist Face Historic Firing Squad," Fox News, October 8, 2026.
