“This is disgusting”
Execution via live stream? Even conservatives criticize Hegseth’s plan
October 9, 2026 – 11:53 a.mReading time: 4 minutes
The USA wants to livestream the execution of a convicted mass murderer. The plan is causing sharp international reactions. Criticism also comes from the conservative camp.
The announcement of a publicly broadcast military execution took place in the USA and also triggered numerous reactions. The US Army has scheduled the execution of former Major Nidal Hasan for December 3rd at the Fort Hood military base in Texas scheduled. The Pentagon subsequently announced that the execution by firing squad would be livestreamed.
Hasan was sentenced to death in 2013 for the murder of 13 people and the attempted murder of 32 others in his 2009 attack on the base.
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US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth makes no secret of the fact that the public should be able to watch the execution. People need to understand that such actions have “serious consequences,” he told the conservative broadcaster Real America’s Voice. According to current plans, the execution will even take place at the same time of day and in the same place as Hasan’s attack 17 years earlier.
The announcement now raises a fundamental question: Can a state make the execution of a person a public spectacle?
“Execution TV?” – sharp criticism from Great Britain
The reaction in the British “Guardian” was particularly sharp. Columnist Paul Daley headlines his comment with the question “Execution TV?” and describes the planned livestream as a “horrible new low.” The core of his criticism is that the government is turning a state-ordered killing into a public spectacle.
Daley’s criticism is not directed against Hasan’s punishment for his crime, but rather against the public staging of his death. For him, the planned broadcast is an example of a political culture in which the public display of violence is becoming acceptable again.
Criticism also comes from conservatives
However, the rejection of the project is by no means limited to the liberal or left-wing camp: Kathryn Jean Lopez from the conservative magazine “National Review” begins her comment with an unequivocal verdict: “This is disgusting.” A person’s death is “not for a show,” she writes, and asks whether the execution should become the entertainment of the audience.
Alyssa Farah Griffin argues similarly. The former employee of the first Trump administration and current host of “The View” made it clear on X that she supports the death penalty, “especially for terrorists.” She still considers a livestream of an execution to be “toxic for society” and watching it is “bad for the human soul.”
The dispute over public broadcasting does not follow the usual political boundaries.
