Vice President JD Vance said he will not watch any live stream of Nidal Malik Hasan’s firing-squad execution and doubts the public broadcast will even air, even as the White House backs the first U.S. military death sentence in more than six decades.

Speaking to reporters Friday in comments captured on C-SPAN, Vance drew a clear line on the planned December 3 spectacle. The Pentagon has said the former Army psychiatrist’s execution will be streamed so the public can see it.

Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood’s Soldier Readiness Processing Center in 2009 while shouting “Allahu Akbar.” He was convicted in 2013 of murdering 13 people. President Donald Trump approved the sentence this week and defended it at a Columbus Day event.

Breitbart News reported Vance’s plain refusal when asked about the stream. The vice president, a Catholic who has said he supports the death penalty, kept his answer short.

"If it’s ultimately live-streamed, I’m not going to be watching it,"

Vance added that he questions whether the feed will happen at all. “I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” he said. “Let’s sort of see.” He noted that Hasan “brutally murdered” innocent people.

Hegseth frames the stream as a public warning

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told Real America’s Voice the execution will be public on purpose. He cast the broadcast as a deliberate signal about consequences for mass murder.

"We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it. That it’s public,"

Hegseth continued: “Because people need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things.” The Death Penalty Information Center notes the December 3 firing squad at 1:00 p.m. would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961. That hour matches the timing of the original 2009 attack.

Trump has been direct. At the Columbus Day event he said the condemned man has earned the sentence.

"We’re giving a man the death penalty... through firing squad, and he deserves it,"

The same White House that has pushed hard on accountability elsewhere is treating this case as settled justice, not a media stunt. Vance has defended other administration press decisions as appropriate when the focus stays on results.

Platforms and critics push back on the camera

FCC Chairman Brendan Carr was pressed Friday on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” about whether the commission would allow a broadcast. He waved the question off.

"Ultimately, we’re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and his decisions on how to move forward with this."

Carr said the matter sits outside his agency. Meta has barred live-streamed capital punishment on Facebook and Instagram since 2019. A TikTok spokesperson pointed to a policy against depicting the moment of death. YouTube and X did not answer questions about how they would handle the footage.

Outside groups condemned the plan. The United Nations and Amnesty International objected. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it “a barbaric promotion of a culture of death.” Hillary Clinton labeled the idea “barbaric.” Those voices treat a convicted terrorist’s sentence as the real outrage.

Vance’s measured distance from the camera does not equal soft treatment of the crime. He has worked with Trump on legislative strategy before, including Senate mapping for the SAVE America Act, and continues to back firm consequences for violence.

Thirteen families still wait for final justice

The core facts have not changed since 2009. A military psychiatrist turned his weapon on soldiers preparing for deployment. Thirteen Americans died. A court-martial convicted him. The president signed off on the sentence. The stream is the only new wrinkle.

Whether any platform actually carries the feed remains open. Meta’s long-standing ban, TikTok’s death-moment rule, and the non-answers from YouTube and X leave the logistics unsettled even as Hegseth insists the public will see it.

Political noise around Vance continues in other lanes, from sparring with Texas Senator Ted Cruz to polling numbers that show soft spots with some voter groups. None of that alters the Fort Hood record.

The families of the dead have waited more than fifteen years. A firing squad on December 3 closes the legal chapter. Live cameras or not, the sentence itself is the point the administration is driving home.

Justice delayed is still justice owed, and the men and women murdered at Fort Hood deserve the final accounting without a circus attached.