Hillary Clinton slammed the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood shooter’s execution as a “barbaric idea,” urging pushback after Trump approved a firing squad for the jihadist killer.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton took to X to denounce the scheduled public broadcast of Nidal Malik Hasan’s military execution, calling the plan beneath the country’s dignity and telling followers to resist it.
The post came after Pentagon officials announced the December 3 execution of the convicted Fort Hood shooter would air via livestream, a step with little precedent in modern U.S. practice. Clinton shared a photo of a New York Times piece headlined “Fort Hood Shooter’s Execution Will Be Public and Streamed Live, Pentagon Says.”
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell had laid out the decision days earlier. On October 5 he stated that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recommended, and President Donald J. Trump approved, death by U.S. Army firing squad for the man Parnell described as a convicted terrorist.
"Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has recommended, and President Donald J. Trump has approved, death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan, the jihadist who opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood in 2009."
Parnell added the human cost in plain terms.
"He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack."
That attack happened on November 5, 2009, when Hasan, then a U.S. Army major, opened fire on unarmed American soldiers at Fort Hood. A jury found him guilty on all charges of murder and attempted murder in August 2013. The sentence has stood for more than a decade while the victims’ families waited.
Clinton’s response focused on the camera, not the crime. She wrote that the livestream was “a barbaric idea, beneath our dignity as a country” and added the direct call: “Push back on this.” Breitbart reported her criticism landed after the Pentagon’s statement confirming the December 3 date and the public feed.
The New York Times account noted that releasing video of executions is most often associated with extremist militant groups like the Islamic State. Clinton treated that comparison as reason enough to rally opposition. She has shown a pattern of sharp public reactions to institutional decisions, including when she called Trump's White House media restrictions 'deeply disturbing' in earlier commentary.
No full transcript of her X post beyond those two sentences appears in the available record, yet the framing is clear: the method of carrying out a lawful sentence offends her more than the original massacre of soldiers.
Trump’s approval of the Army firing squad followed Hegseth’s recommendation. Parnell’s announcement left no ambiguity about the identity of the condemned man or the nature of his act. Hasan targeted unarmed troops on a U.S. base, shouted an Islamist battle cry, and left 13 dead and 32 wounded.
Military executions remain rare. The decision to make this one both public and streamed marks a deliberate break from past practice. Officials scheduled it for December 3 and stated the livestream would accompany the sentence. Clinton’s immediate demand was not for more information or for review of the verdict; it was for political resistance to the transparency itself.
Readers following Clinton’s public statements on high-profile deaths may recall how she joined others to honor Gloria Steinem after the feminist icon died at 92. The contrast in tone is hard to miss: solemn tribute for an activist, urgent alarm for the broadcast of a terrorist’s lawful punishment.
The numbers have not changed since 2009. Thirteen soldiers and civilians killed. Thirty-two more wounded. A guilty verdict on every murder and attempted-murder count. Hasan has remained alive and housed at public expense for seventeen years while appeals and process ran their course.
Parnell’s language called Hasan exactly what the record shows: a jihadist who turned his weapon on the very force he had sworn to serve. The firing-squad method is an Army process, not a novelty invented for cameras. The livestream is the element that drew Clinton’s fire.
Some of the same circles that now object to watching justice done once followed the tangled personal histories surrounding figures like Steinem, including accounts such as the one in which Andrew Stein recalls romance with Gloria Steinem that began at the chaotic 1968 DNC. Public memory is selective. The Fort Hood families have had no such luxury of distance.
The Pentagon’s statement, as relayed, treated the December 3 date and the broadcast as settled policy. Clinton answered with a dignity lecture aimed at the American public rather than at the man who shouted “Allahu Akbar” while gunning down unarmed troops.
A lawful sentence carried out in the open does not become barbaric because cameras are present. The barbarism occurred on November 5, 2009. The country that watched its soldiers die has every right to watch the consequence arrive.
