JD Vance says he would not watch livestreamed execution of Fort Hood shooter

JD Vance has said he would not watch the livestreamed execution by firing squad of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.

The Vice President expressed skepticism over whether the Pentagon will proceed with livestreaming the scheduled December 3 execution of Hasan, who was found guilty in a trial of fatally shooting 13 people at the Texas military base in 2009.

“I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” Mr Vance told reporters in Cincinnati, referring to the controversial livestream plan championed by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.

If it is shown publicly, the Vice President said, “I’m not going to be watching it.”

President Donald Trump told reporters that Hasan deserves the death penalty by firing squad, calling him “totally nuts.”

However, when asked if he wants the execution livestreamed, the Republican president said he has yet to “make a determination about that.”

Hasan, an American-born Muslim, said during his 2013 trial that he carried out the shootings to try to stop what he called a US war on Islam.

Mr Vance said: “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.”

Senior Republicans and religious leaders have condemned the move, arguing against the livestreaming.

Senator John Curtis wrote on social media that “a civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment.”

Senator Thom Tillis and Representative Austin Scott said livestreaming executions is what Islamist extremists would do. Representative Rob Bresnahan said the pain felt by victims and family members “deserves respect, not a public show.”

Representative Michael Baumgartner added: “This should be reconsidered.”

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A government execution has never been broadcast or livestreamed, according to death penalty experts, and the US military has not executed anyone by firing squad since 1945.

Hasan, now 56, is believed to be confined to a wheelchair, having been shot by police during his arrest.

A senior White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said President Trump does not oppose the idea of livestreaming the execution but could change his mind.

The White House is hearing concerns from lawmakers, allies and religious leaders who are urging the administration not to livestream it, the official said.

President of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops Paul Coakley condemned the planned livestream as a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death.”

Walter Kim, president of the National Association of Evangelicals, said on social media that a livestreamed execution by firing squad “risks turning one of the state’s most solemn responsibilities into a public spectacle, promoting a culture of death, rather than a culture that upholds the dignity of every human being.”

Mr Hegseth, a member of a conservative evangelical denomination, has made his Christian faith a key part of his tenure as Secretary of War and has led prayer services at the Pentagon.

Joe Kent, who resigned this year as President Trump’s head of the National Counterterrorism Center, wrote on social media: “Streaming his execution is not just a stain on our morality, it also gives the terrorists free propaganda that they will use to radicalize & recruit more terrorists.”

The UN human rights office said public executions violate prohibitions against torture.

Shabia Mantoo, a spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said: “Public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”

Amnesty International called the use of a firing squad “reprehensible.”

The execution is scheduled to be held at the same sprawling military base where Hasan opened fire with a handgun in a medical facility.

The Pentagon on Friday declined to say whether families of those killed in Hasan’s attack would be invited to attend the execution, as is common practice in US civilian executions.

It remains unclear how the Army would select the shooters and what protocols might be followed during the execution itself.

The Pentagon said it would release details later.