HEBRON, Ky. (AP) — Vice President JD Vance expressed doubt Friday about the Pentagon’s live broadcast of the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan in December, but told reporters that if it were broadcast live, “I won’t watch it.”
The Republican vice president said, “I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen,” when asked about the plans confirmed Thursday by the Pentagon. But Vance later tried to put aside controversy over plans for a public execution and said Hasan’s crimes should not be forgotten.
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people and injuring 32 others in a shooting at the military base in 2009.
“Regardless of the controversy surrounding the method of execution, I hope people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered many innocent people,” Vance said.
“Now, having said that, I mean, look, if it ends up being broadcast live, I’m not going to watch it,” he added.
Vance is a convert to the Catholic Church, which has long opposed capital punishment.
President Donald Trump had endorsed Hasan’s execution by firing squad at a political event Wednesday in Texas, suggesting “he deserves it.”
However, Trump was evasive when asked Friday whether he wanted the execution broadcast live. “Well, they’re making a decision on that,” Trump told reporters before heading to a political event in Syracuse, New York.
But he again endorsed the firing squad as a method.
“He will be killed. He will be killed, by firing squad,” Trump told reporters. “I don’t care how he goes, as long as he goes. And I think the death penalty is a very valid path for him.”
Trump did not respond when asked if he would watch a live-streamed execution.
Earlier Friday morning, the head of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops condemned the U.S. government’s decision to livestream Hasan’s execution.
“It is with shock and great sadness that I learned of the War Department’s decision to publicly broadcast the execution,” Archbishop Paul S. Coakley, president of the conference, said in a statement. He added that the decision was “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death and must be reconsidered.”
Trump approved the execution by firing squad days after a failed execution attempt Christa Pike, by lethal injection late last month, pushed the governor of Tennessee to stop further executions in this state this year.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military has not executed a service member by firing squad since World War II. The last military execution took place on April 13, 1961, when Army Pvt. John Bennett was executed by hanging.
In Congress, lawmakers from both parties, Republicans and Democrats, widely condemned what they called a “horrible” and “disgusting” decision to livestream the execution and implored the Pentagon to reverse course.
“Beyond disgusting,” said Sen. Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. This should not happen in America.”
Lawmakers said the authoritarian-style spectacle would send a message profoundly contrary to American values and its justice system, and risk putting U.S. military personnel and others abroad at risk of blowback.
Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, condemned Hegseth’s plan, saying there is a reason why “almost no country in the world engages in this barbaric practice.”
Republican Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska explained how the United States manages its justice system and urged the Pentagon “to reverse this horrible decision.”
Republican Sen. John Curtis of Utah pointed to the bloody spectacles of Rome’s past and said Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution risked “feeding that appetite” for corrosive entertainment.
“I urge him to reconsider,” Curtis said.
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This story has been corrected to show that the name of the military base is Fort Hood, not Ford Hood.
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Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Lisa Mascaro in Washington and Holly Meyer in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed to this report.
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