Vance expresses doubts about Pentagon plan to livestream Fort Hood shooter’s execution
HEBRON, Ky. — Vice President JD Vance cast doubt Friday on whether the Pentagon will livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan in December but told reporters that if it is livestreamed, “I’m not going to be watching it.”
The Republican vice president said, “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” when asked about the plans that the Pentagon confirmed Thursday. But Vance then tried to set aside the controversy over the plans for a public execution and said Hasan’s crimes should not be forgotten.
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting spree at the military base in 2009.
“So whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Vance said.
“Now, that said, I mean, look, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it,” he added.
Vance is a convert to the Catholic Church, which has long opposed capital punishment.
President Donald Trump had endorsed Hasan's execution by firing squad during a Wednesday political event in Texas, suggesting “he deserves it.”
However, Trump was noncommittal when asked Friday whether he wanted the execution livestreamed. "Well, they’re making a determination about that,” Trump told reporters before traveling to a political event in Syracuse, N.Y.
But he again endorsed the firing squad as the method.
“He will be killed. He will be, through firing squad,” Trump told reporters. “I really don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes. And I think the death penalty is a very worthy way of going for him.”
Trump did not answer when asked if he would watch a livestreamed execution.
Earlier Friday morning, the head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the U.S. government’s decision to livestream Hasan's execution.
“It is with shock and great sorrow that I have learned of the Department of War’s decision to publicly livestream the execution,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the conference, said in a statement. He added that the decision was “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.”
Trump approved the execution by firing squad days after a failed attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection late last month pushed Tennessee’s governor to halt further executions in that state this year.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military hasn’t executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.
