U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth received widespread criticism after announcing he would livestream the execution of a man who killed 13 people at a military base in Texas.
After the Pentagon chief told conservative news outlets on Thursday that the shooting death of retired Army Major Nidal Hassan would be made public, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle in Congress reacted quickly.
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“Hasan should be put to death, but to make his execution public and streamed? That’s beyond disgusting,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis, who recently expressed regret about the 2025 vote to confirm Hegseth as Pentagon chief, said on social media. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. They should not be carried out in the United States.”
Republican Rep. Austin Scott, who serves on the U.S. House Armed Services Committee, also opposed the announcement.
“I fully support the death penalty, but live streaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that,” the Georgia lawmaker told X.
“The focus should be on justice for the victims and their families,” said Scott’s Republican colleague, Rep. Rob Bresnahan.
“Their pain deserves respect and should not be shown publicly,” Bresnahan said.
Al Jazeera has not heard back from the three Republican senators who opposed Hegseth’s confirmation: Susan Collins, Mitch McConnell and Lisa Murkowski.
Hasan, a former U.S. Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death in August 2013 after a military jury found him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted murder in the Fort Hood shooting.
On Monday, US President Donald Trump authorized the use of a firing squad to execute Hassan. Mr Hegseth said on Thursday that the incident occurred at the military base at 1pm local time (7pm Japan time) on December 3, the same time as the 2009 shooting.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called on the Trump administration on Friday to “reconsider” the decision, calling it “a gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters.”
“Live streaming an execution is a barbaric spectacle,” the Rhode Island state lawmaker told Al Jazeera in a statement. “This is yet another stunt by Secretary Hegseth to distract from the repeated failures of his tenure that have only weakened our national security and standing in the world.”
“This is absolutely disgraceful and undermines America’s national interests and core values,” Reid added.
Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a fellow Democrat, appeared wide-eyed and visibly shocked when asked about Hegseth’s decision in a CNN interview on Thursday.
“It’s disgusting,” Murphy told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “Is he imitating ISIS (ISIL) executions? I understand that we have the death penalty in this country, but public executions are () medieval.”
However, not all lawmakers are against the idea.
“This terrorist deserves a public execution,” Tennessee Republican Congressman Andy Ogles said on social media, calling Hegseth’s decision “excellent.”
army policy
U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance told reporters Friday during a visit to his home state of Ohio that he “will not watch” the livestream of Hasan’s death.
“We’re seeing these announcements, but we don’t know if it’s actually going to happen,” said Vance, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps. “Let’s just take a look…when he gets executed.”
U.S. military policy limits who can witness military executions. According to military regulations, no one under the age of 18 is allowed to witness an execution. Victims, their families, lawyers for prisoners and at least two members of the media will be among the limited number of people allowed to view.
Reed said President Trump would need to approve a waiver for Hasan’s execution to be “public.”
Asked if President Trump would grant that permission, the White House referred Al Jazeera to the Pentagon.
The head of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which regulates domestic broadcast communications, said Friday that he would leave it up to the Pentagon to decide whether U.S. networks could broadcast executions.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in an interview with CNBC: “Ultimately, we’re going to leave it up to Secretary Hegseth and, you know, his decision on how to proceed with this matter.”
A Pentagon official told Al Jazeera that the Pentagon “has nothing more to offer.”
The United Nations strongly condemned the live streaming of Hasan’s execution as a violation of international law.
A spokesperson for the United Nations human rights office told AFP news agency that broadcasting the execution “is tantamount to a public execution and violates the absolute prohibition of torture.”
