FCC Won’t Stop — and Vance Won’t Watch — Livestreamed Execution of Fort Hood Terrorist

When a firing squad executes terrorist mass murderer Nidal Hasan on December 3, Americans will be able to watch it, and the Federal Communications Commission won’t likely stop the broadcast.

The Pentagon announced that it will livestream the punishment, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed the plan during an interview. FCC chieftain Brendan Carr has said the FCC doesn’t have the power to stop it.

Journalist Nick Sortor claims he will livestream the execution. Vice President JD Vance said he won’t watch it.

The Fort Hood Massacre

Hasan, an Army psychiatrist, murdered 13 Americans and wounded 32 others on November 5, 2009.

In 2011, the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee concluded that the FBI ignored evidence of Major Hasan’s commitment to violent Jihad, and that he could and should have been stopped long before opening fire that fateful day. Hasan was shouting “Alahu Akbar!” (“God is great!”) as he mowed down his victims, which included one civilian.

One of the report’s key conclusions is that Hasan was an open jihadist:

Evidence of Hasan’s radicalization to violent Islamist extremism was on full display to his superiors and colleagues during his military medical training. An instructor and a colleague each referred to Hasan as a “ticking time bomb.” Not only was no action taken to discipline or discharge him, but also his Officer Evaluation Report sanitized his obsession with violent Islamist extremism into praiseworthy research on counterterrorism.

As well, the report fingered the Army and Department of the Defense (DoD) for not stopping the deranged Mohammedan:

DoD possessed compelling evidence that Hasan embraced views so extreme that it should have disciplined him or discharged him from the military, but DoD failed to take action against him. Indeed, a number of policies on commanders’ authority, extremism, and personnel gave supervisors in his chain of command the authority to take such actions. It is clear from this failure that DoD lacks the institutional culture, through updated policies and training, sufficient to inform commanders and all levels of service members how to identify radicalization to violent Islamist extremism and to distinguish this ideology from the peaceful practice of Islam.

The Army might not have moved against the headshrinker because of its dangerous concerns about “diversity” and “inclusion.”

Just days after Hasan struck his deadly blow, then-Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey, Jr. expressed concern on national television not about more Muslim jihadists who might perpetrate another mass murder, but about whether Hasan’s deeds might “cause a backlash against some of our Muslim soldiers.”

“I’ve asked our Army leaders to be on the lookout for that,” Casey told CNN’s State of the Union:

It would be a shame — as great a tragedy as this was — it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well.

Critics said that attitude helped Hasan perpetrate the mass murder.

Execution on TV?

Speaking to commentator Jack Posobiec, Hegseth was candid about what was coming for the jihadist.

“He’s gonna get a firing squad of soldiers,” Hegseth said:

As it should be. We’ll 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.

And speaking on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Carr said the livestream falls outside the purview of the FCC, The Washington Post noted.

“The Pentagon has not indicated that the execution will be broadcast on television, and major networks have not said they plan to carry the feed,” the newspaper reported:

But broadcasters could still pick up the live feed if no restrictions are set.

“I trust what [Defense] Secretary [Pete] Hegseth said. He’s implementing the laws and the regulations that are, you know, relevant to the Department of War, and I think he’s doing a great job, and I trust that he’s making the right call on these issues,” Carr said.

When pressed on whether the FCC would allow Pentagon officials to broadcast the execution if they wanted to, Carr responded, “Ultimately, we’re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and his decisions on how to move forward with this.”

Sortor gleefully announced that he would livestream the execution, noting that no one must watch it.

“For those complaining that you ‘don’t want to watch a terrorist be executed,’” he wrote on X:

Don’t! NOBODY is forcing you to do so.

But I believe it’s important to set an example: killing American soldiers results in PUBLIC EXECUTION

Vice President JD Vance, who suggested that the execution might not be livestreamed, said he wouldn’t watch it.

“First of all, I’ve seen those announcements,” Vance told reporters in Ohio. “I don’t know that that’s going to happen.” 

Vance said Hasan “committed … the worst terrorist attack on American soil outside of 9/11.” But “if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not gonna be watching it.”

Podcaster Glenn Greenwald observed that Americans have never televised public executions:

Not even the Nazi defendants sentenced to death at the Nuremberg trials had their executions televised (it was deemed violative of the human rights that post-WW2 institutions were trying to re-establish).

The most amazing part of this is that Nidal Hasan is paraplegic and close to 60. So this disgusting spectacle will involve rolling him out in a wheelchair, then live-streaming his body as it’s pumped full of bullets.

When I and others pointed out last night that public executions are carried out only by the countries we’re told are the most primitive and savage (Afghanistan, North Korea), MAGA enthusiasts replied that we were too weak. Pummeling an old guy in a wheelchair with bullets — as a reality TV show — seems like an odd and dubious definition of “strength,” let alone an expression of the western values they endlessly claim they and they alone are trying to salvage.

Former U.S. counterterrorism chief Joe Kent — a decorated Green Beret combat veteran — agreed.

While Hasan’s execution is justified and the firing squad is too merciful considering his crime, livestreaming it “is beneath the dignity & decency of our nation,” he wrote on X:

Americans will use violence if and when justified, but we do not rejoice in it. Kill him swiftly & silently.

Streaming his execution is not just a stain on our morality — it also gives the terrorists free propaganda that they will use to radicalize & recruit more terrorists like Hasan.

As for Hasan, his appeals are exhausted and President Donald Trump has OK’d the execution. Barring a successful civil rights appeal or federal habeas corpus appeal challenging his conviction and sentence or method of execution, Hasan will face a firing squad on December 3.

The last American whom the military executed by firing squad was deserter Private Eddie Slovik, on January 31, 1945.