US President Donald Trump has canceled the controversial plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan, scrapping a proposal that drew fierce condemnation from across the political spectrum and the international community.
Trump announced on his Truth Social platform on Thursday that Hasan's execution by military firing squad will proceed as scheduled on December 3, but the event "will not be streamed."
The reversal comes after the administration faced a massive backlash over the proposal, which was initially championed by War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The plan to turn capital punishment into a public spectacle prompted outrage from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers, the Catholic Church, the United Nations, and retired military officers.
According to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, eight in 10 Americans opposed the livestream.
The UN warned that broadcasting the execution would amount to "torture," while the president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned it as a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death."
Dozens of retired US generals and admirals also warned in an open letter that the broadcast would "taint the honor of the military" and risk turning Hasan into a martyr.
While Trump indicated he did not personally oppose the stream—noting it "might have been a strong deterrent"—he conceded that "many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die."
He added that the immediate families of the victims would still be allowed to view the execution in person.
The cancellation marks a significant blow to Hegseth, who is already facing intense scrutiny and political fallout over the stalemated US war on Iran, an issue that is heavily weighing on the Republican Party ahead of the November midterm elections.
Hasan, a Muslim US Army psychiatrist, was sentenced to death by a military jury in 2013 for the November 5, 2009, mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, which left 13 people dead, 12 of them soldiers, and 32 others wounded.
During his court-martial, where he chose to represent himself and called no witnesses, the court was told that Hasan was deeply opposed to the US military’s occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
During his court-martial, where he chose to represent himself and called no witnesses, the court was told that Hasan was deeply opposed to the US military's occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars that Brown University's Costs of War Project estimates killed nearly one million people directly, and up to 4.7 million when accounting for deaths from hunger, disease, and displacement.
He viewed the attack as an effort to stop American troops from killing his fellow Muslims.
His upcoming execution will be the first carried out by a US military firing squad since 1945.
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