Trump’s Hasan execution plan sparks fight over livestream

Terry Schilling, president of the socially conservative advocacy group American Principles Project, responded to the End Wokeness post with a blunt accusation.

They agree with the terrorists. They agree with the assassins. They support it. Period. They don’t want peace. They want a very bloody revolution.¹

— Terry Schilling

The line built on another post. The End Wokeness account posted that same day: “I'm horrified that Trump would publicly execute a terrorist” — same people who celebrated these. The post attached images and named no critic. Schilling quoted that post¹, amplifying a “same people” accusation that appears in the End Wokeness text², and both posts came a day after the Pentagon announcement³.

NPR reports that President Trump approved the firing-squad execution⁴ of Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009. Army Secretary Adam Telle's order sets the execution at Fort Hood for Dec. 3, which would be the first U.S. military execution in over six decades. That leaves every household the real question: what a country owes a lawful verdict, and what it refuses to excuse when a killer takes the law into his own hands.

A family can teach a child the difference between a verdict and an assassination, and Hasan's case is the verdict. A military jury convicted Hasan on all counts and sentenced him to death, and the appeals process ended when the Supreme Court denied his final petition in the spring of 2025⁴. That is the justice system finishing its work, in public, over more than a decade.

Charlie Kirk's death sits on the other side of that line. Reuters found that some of the people disciplined over comments about Kirk's Sept. 10, 2025, assassination had celebrated or mocked his death⁵. That is the contrast Schilling and End Wokeness draw¹, and it is one the culture has to face. The question stands on its own anyway. If a sentence after a full trial is justice, what does it say about a country when people celebrate an assassination? That is the line parents draw at home, whatever the feeds tell their children.

1. spring of 2025The Supreme Court denied Hasan’s final petition
2. Sept. 10, 2025Charlie Kirk was assassinated
3. Dec. 3Hasan’s execution is scheduled at Fort Hood

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The reaction to Kirk's assassination reached into the places where children spend their days. Reuters found more than 600 Americans fired, suspended, investigated or disciplined by employers over comments about the killing, and calls that tally likely an undercount. More than 350 of them were education workers, including 50 academics and senior university administrators, three high school principals, two cheerleading coaches and a theology instructor⁵.

One was Lauren Vaughn, a South Carolina kindergarten assistant, fired after she posted a 2023 Kirk quote about gun deaths followed by "Thoughts and prayers."⁵ She says the call for prayer was sincere and filed a federal lawsuit on Sept. 18 seeking reinstatement. The Spartanburg district answered that her post appeared to endorse Kirk's murder. Reuters also reports that at least a dozen Kirk critics who condemned the shooting lost jobs or were suspended. Classrooms are where children learn what a community does with political violence, and the adults in them are now answering for every word.

The strongest case against the livestream is not a case for Hasan. The Pentagon's livestream plan rests on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's reasoning: "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there's serious consequence for these types of things."⁶ Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia answered, "I absolutely support the sentence of death, but livestreaming executions is what jihadists do. America is better than that." Democratic Rep. Eugene Vindman called it un-American, the UN human rights office condemned the idea, and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death."

Not every expert objects. Fordham law professor Deborah Denno said, “I think it could possibly be a good idea because it would be transparent and the public would be fully aware that it's happening.”³ The president himself has not settled it: Trump said Friday that Hasan "absolutely" deserves death by firing squad but has yet "to make a determination" on a livestream⁶. The answer is plain: the broadcast dispute is separate from the sentence, and Scott's own words show that objecting to a camera is not approving of murder. The post's charge lands on those who celebrate assassinations, not on every critic of a broadcast.

Republican Rep. Rob Bresnahan of Pennsylvania put the standard in his own words: "The focus should be on justice for the victims and their families, not turning an execution into entertainment." Reuters' record of Kirk's aftermath shows what happens when the culture fails that test: celebration on one side, and schools and workplaces caught in the fallout, including educators⁵. DW reported that Trump had yet to decide whether Hasan's execution would be livestreamed⁶.

Sources

1. @Schilling1776 on X, 2026-10-09: They agree with the terrorists. They agree with the assassins. They support it. Period. They don’t want peace. They want a very bloody revolution., 2026-10-09
2. @EndWokeness on X, 2026-10-09: "I'm horrified that Trump would publicly execute a terrorist" - same people who celebrated these https://x.com/EndWokeness/status/2108570635370652093/photo/1, 2026-10-09
3. Pentagon says execution of Fort Hood shooter will be livestreamed : NPR
4. Trump approves firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter : NPR
5. The Charlie Kirk purge: How 600 Americans were punished in a pro-Trump crackdown | Reuters
6. Trump weighs livestream execution amid bipartisan backlash