Bay Area Lawmakers Denounce Pentagon’s Plan for Live Streamed Execution
State lawmakers are denouncing the Pentagon’s plan to livestream an execution by firing squad in December.
In 2009, Nidal Hasan, then-Army major and physician, shot and killed 13 unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, wounding 32 others. Paralyzed from the waist down after being shot during the incident, he’s been on death row since 2013.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth made waves on Oct. 8 when he announced that Hasan’s execution by firing squad, scheduled for Dec. 3, would be made public.
Hegseth told conservative news outlet Real America’s Voice that the decision to have soldiers carry out the execution publicly, with rifles, was a “no brainer.”
“It hadn’t been since World War II since we’ve done that,” Hegseth added. “Well, I kinda like the mentality we had in World War II.”
North Bay Rep. Mike Thompson called the live streaming idea one of the most distasteful decisions to come from Hegseth.
“That’s going far, because he’s made some real blunders,” Thompson told KQED. “The person committed some heinous crimes, he should be punished, but this is not something for entertainment.”
“It’s not something that’s going to help,” Thompson continued. “It’s not something that civilized humanity does.”
President Trump said last week he “absolutely did” approve the execution being livestreamed. But on Saturday, he told reporters that he will make a final decision soon.
“I know what the military would like to do, but I’ll make a decision,” Trump said.
“It’s my understanding that the White House has not decided how to proceed, so the court of public opinion can be powerful,” Thompson said. “We need to make sure everyone knows that this is inappropriate and shouldn’t be allowed to happen, and that word needs to get to the President.”
“This is not an American value,” Thompson added. “I can’t say that strongly enough.”
South Bay Rep. Ro Khanna condemned Hegseth’s plans over the weekend.
“This is like the spectacle of the coliseum, for entertainment and for shaming people,” Khanna told MS NOW. “It has no basis in modern humanitarian law, it’s going to make us an outlier, it’s actually going to glorify the terrorist who did this.”
Khanna forecasted it as “a recruiting tool for terrorist groups all over the world.”
“It is this total idiocy of governance, that’s why we’re struggling as a nation,” he added.
East Bay Rep. Mark DeSaulnier called Hegseth’s plan “barbaric” and said it “makes a mockery of our justice system.”
“Secretary Hegseth and this Administration continue to put spectacle over the safety and security of the American people,” DeSaulnier wrote in an email to KQED.
Khanna sits on the House Armed Services Committee, responsible for the funding, policy, and oversight of the DOD and the military. He said he plans on holding Hegseth and others accountable.
“Thomas Massie has an impeachment resolution on Hegseth and that is going to get, in my view, 20 Republicans he needs to be impeached,” Khanna said. “But that’s not enough. We need a truth and accountability commission in this country.”
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi weighed in, posting on X that Pete Hegseth “dishonors both our nation and the position he holds. He is beyond unfit to lead the brave men and women of our Armed Forces. He must go.”
Hasan can still move to significantly delay his sentence if he files a habeas corpus petition in federal court. If the Pentagon’s plan goes through, it will be the first execution by the military since 1961 — when it killed Army Pvt. John Bennet by hanging, for rape and attempted murder.
The last military execution by firing squad was carried out in 1945, during World War II, when an Army private named Eddie Slovik was shot in France for desertion.