‘I’m not going to be watching it’: Vance opting out of public execution

Por Ben Johansen — POLITICO – TOP Stories

Vice President JD Vance said Friday he would not watch the planned livestream of the December firing squad execution of Nidal Malik Hasan — and even questioned whether a livestream would happen at all.

Speaking to reporters, the vice president, the nation’s highest-ranking Catholic, questioned whether the execution would actually be made public but said in any case he wouldn’t watch it. Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009.

“Whatever the controversy is about the method of the execution, I hope that people don’t forget that this is a guy who brutally murdered a lot of innocent people,” Vance said. “Now that said, if it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it.”

Vance’s comments come amid bipartisan backlash over the Trump administration’s decision to stream the execution live.

His comments come a day after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth confirmed plans to livestream Hasan’s Dec. 3 execution by firing squad, which would mark the military’s first execution in more than six decades.

Hegseth has defended the decision to make the execution public, arguing that Americans should be able to watch because they need to understand that there are “serious consequences” for such crimes.

But the proposal has drawn sharp criticism from both parties, along with some religious figures, who have objected to turning the execution into a public spectacle.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), one of the most vocal GOP critics of Hegseth’s management of the Pentagon, ripped the effort as “beyond disgusting” on Thursday. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America,” he said.

The backlash has also extended to the Catholic Church, where Archbishop Paul Coakley, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, condemned the plan Friday, calling it a “barbaric promotion of a culture of death” that “must be reconsidered.”

“The public execution even of one who has done grave harm will only further undermine the moral fabric of our nation and be a blight on the conscience of its people,” Coakley said in a statement.

And some conservative Christian commentators have also urged against a public execution. Conservative radio host Erick Erickson concluded a lengthy post on X citing scripture by saying, “I support the death penalty. Public executions are soul-twisting and we should not go down that road.”

Fonte: POLITICO – TOP Stories