Will you watch? Curley says ‘majority of people’ will tune in to Nidal Hasan’s public execution

The Pentagon said Thursday it will livestream the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan, the former Army psychiatrist convicted of the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Dec. 3 execution will be public.

No execution in the U.S. has been carried out in public since August 14, 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky before a crowd of between 10,000 and 20,000 people.

“20,000 people showed up,” KIRO host John Curley said. “There were vendors selling hot dogs.”

Kentucky ended public executions shortly after in 1938.

Hegseth announced the plan for a public execution in an interview with Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice.

“He’s going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be,” Hegseth said. “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public.”

He also contrasted it with the Obama administration’s description of the attack as “workplace violence.”

“The problem you get into is you swing the pendulum all the way up to workplace violence, and don’t mention Muslim. You know, change that around, and then you get somebody grabbing the pendulum and forcing it all the way back to the other side,” Curley said. “The grabbing and swinging violently does not speak to the general sort of values of the American people, I believe, because you’re pulling in one direction.”

The 2009 Fort Hood shooting

Hasan opened fire at the Fort Hood Soldier Readiness Center on November 5, 2009, killing 12 soldiers and one civilian and wounding more than 30 others. A military jury convicted him in 2013, and his final appeal was rejected in 2025.

The execution is set for 1 p.m. Dec. 3 at Fort Hood, the same day of the week and time of day as the attack. It would be the military’s first execution since 1961 and its first by firing squad since 1945.

The Pentagon has not said how the public would watch until its statement later Thursday, and members of both parties have criticized the plan, CNN reported. Additionally, Hasan can still seek review in federal civilian court, which could delay it.

Curley said his concern is the families of the 13 people Hasan killed.

“That’s your brother. That’s your father. That’s your mother. That’s your sister,” Curley said. “But now their memory, your loss, is then re-exposed and then dipped into a vat of just bizarre showbiz.”

He also predicted heavy interest in the broadcast.

“I’m going to say the majority of people probably will,” Curley said, when asked whether the public would tune in to watch.

Hasan’s attack happened nearly 17 years ago.

“This is not a fresh wound,” Joe Wallace, Curley’s producer, said. “But it’s going to become one.”

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

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