President Trump on Friday endorsed the Pentagon’s plan to execute convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad, telling reporters the Army major “deserves it.”
The president’s comments came hours after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced the execution would be publicly livestreamed, making it the first military firing squad execution since World War II. Trump, speaking to reporters, framed the decision around the scale of the 2009 massacre inside a Fort Hood medical building. “We’re giving a man the death penalty who killed 14 soldiers a couple of years ago,” he said. “Death penalty through firing squad — and, uh, and he deserves it. Killed and wounded many, many people. Maniac.”
Hasan, who was serving as an Army psychiatrist at the Texas base, opened fire on Nov. 5, 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. Witnesses reported he shouted “Allahu Akbar,” Arabic for “God is great,” as he fired shots from a laser-sighted handgun. He later confessed the attack was intended to stop U.S. Forces from deploying to Afghanistan and killing fellow Muslims.
The shooting prompted one of the most protracted military capital cases in modern history. Hasan was convicted of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder, with a military jury handing down a death sentence in 2013. More than a decade later, no execution date had been set until the current administration moved to carry out the sentence.
Hegseth has aggressively promoted the public nature of the execution, which Pentagon officials confirmed will be livestreamed on Dec. 3 at Fort Hood. “We’re gonna make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” he said. He added: “Army major betrays his country, radical Islamist kills a bunch of Americans at Fort Hood. Of course we’re doing it at Fort Hood.”
The decision to livestream the execution has drawn intense backlash from critics who question the propriety of broadcasting a state killing, while supporters have framed it as a necessary statement about accountability for attacks on service members. The Pentagon has not detailed technical specifics of how the livestream will be administered or what restrictions, if any, will govern its distribution.
Hasan’s case has remained politically charged since the shooting, with repeated legislative and administrative disputes over whether the attack should be classified as terrorism or workplace violence. The classification carried implications for victims’ benefits and the broader framing of domestic radicalization. Hasan represented himself during portions of his court-martial, offered little defense, and has reportedly shown no remorse in subsequent years.
The planned Dec. 3 execution at Fort Hood would break a decades-long pause in military capital punishment. The military death row at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, currently holds several inmates, but no military execution has been carried out since 1961, when Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged for rape and attempted murder. The last military execution by firing squad specifically, as Hegseth’s announcement noted, occurred during World War II.