President Trump last week capitulated to common sense and reality and canceled the Pentagon’s planned livestream of the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people and wounded 32 others at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.

Secretary of War Hegseth had said that the execution would be broadcast via livestream, and initially the President agreed. However, Trump consulted his advisers in the wake of widespread criticism, and it seems that the fact that Hasan is paralyzed tipped the scales against a public firing squad execution.

Maybe, as I did, he had flashes of “Blazing Saddles,” when the executioner “Boris” is about to hang a man in a wheelchair. Be that as it may, Trump wrote on Truth Social that he still believed a televised execution would be a “strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with terrorists and SCUM,” but was now hesitant because “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device.” Neither half of that statement makes any sense, but you know, that’s our President. Public, private, the deterrent is the execution, not who gets to see it. No one who would rather not watch Hasan die had to watch. Well, what matters is the decision, not how or why he made it, and cancelling the live stream was the ethical and practical move. I explained in the previous post on this topic why the public execution was unethical.

Only immediate families of Hasan’s victims will be allowed to witness the execution.