Pete Hegseth announces the U.S. military will conduct a public execution in Texas

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign to project military toughness now includes an audience for an execution.

The Pentagon will livestream the killing of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan by firing squad, the Associated Press reported Thursday. Scheduled for December 3 in Texas, the execution would make a condemned prisoner’s death publicly viewable 90 years after America’s last public hanging.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” Hegseth told Real America’s Voice, a right-wing news outlet. Asked about Hasan’s final requests or contact with the administration, he replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3rd.”

That posture follows Hegseth’s September 30 address at Quantico, where, as The Advocate reported, he mocked transgender people, celebrated the removal of senior officers, and promoted testosterone testing as evidence of a transformed military. His promises of strength repeatedly came packaged with contempt for those he portrayed as weak or unwelcome.

The execution announcement also arrives amid fresh evidence of capital punishment’s failures. Tennessee’s September 30 attempt to execute Christa Pike left her alive after officials administered two doses of pentobarbital. Gov. Bill Lee paused remaining executions for the year and ordered an independent review.

Pike, condemned for killing Colleen Slemmer in 1995, regained consciousness days later. Her attorneys said Wednesday that her recovery remained uncertain, AP reported.

America’s last public execution was Rainey Bethea’s 1936 hanging in Owensboro, Kentucky, according to NPR. About 20,000 people watched. Bethea, a Black man convicted of rape, was executed on August 14 of that year.

Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 at Fort Hood in 2009. President Donald Trump approved his execution.

Yet the military’s promised display of certainty comes with unresolved procedures. AP reported that the Army had not detailed its firing squad protocol. A civilian court challenge could delay what would be the first military execution since 1961.