Trump calls off the plan to livestream the Fort Hood shooter's execution, saying good people would rather not watch him die

The execution will happen. It will not be broadcast.

President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social on Thursday that he had cancelled the Pentagon's plan to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted in a military trial of shooting 13 people dead and wounding 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. Streaming the execution, the president wrote, might have been a strong deterrent showing how America deals with terrorists, but many good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming or any other visual device. Hasan will die as scheduled by firing squad on December 3 at Fort Hood, Trump said, and the immediate families of the victims may view the execution in person if they choose.

Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced earlier this month that the execution would be broadcast live, a step no other country is known to take with judicial executions. A Pentagon spokesman, Sean Parnell, said Hegseth spoke with the president before the announcement and supports the decision completely. CNN reported the president had not known in advance that Hegseth would announce the livestream, and had only later learned that Hasan, who was shot by responders during the attack, is paralysed from the waist down.

The plan had drawn opposition well beyond the usual critics of capital punishment. Vice President JD Vance said he would not watch and doubted the plan would go ahead. House Speaker Mike Johnson said some of his colleagues had concerns. Archbishop Timothy Broglio, who oversees Catholic members of the armed forces, objected, and Pope Leo condemned capital punishment in all its forms. An ABC News, Washington Post and Ipsos poll released on Thursday found 80 percent of American adults opposed livestreaming the execution, including 64 percent of Republicans, as of October 15.

Survivors quoted by the New York Post praised the reversal. One wounded survivor said a livestream could have been used by ISIS or al Qaeda as a recruiting tool, and a civilian employee who survived the attack while nine months pregnant said she was ecstatic, worrying about what a permanent online recording would do to viewers and to children who might find it.