Trump Scraps Pentagon Plan to Livestream Fort Hood Shooter's Execution, Calling Him 'Scum'

President Trump said Oct. 15 that the US military will not livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, reversing a plan Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced earlier in the month. Trump wrote that airing it "might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan," but said "many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die"; victims' immediate family may still attend in person.

The livestream plan drew bipartisan criticism, including from Vice President JD Vance and House Speaker Mike Johnson, and from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, whose president called it a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death"; critics also warned the footage could be used for radicalization. Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, is scheduled for execution by firing squad on Dec. 3 -- the US military's first such execution since World War II.

The Pentagon has not detailed what, if any, video or audio record of the execution will be released afterward.