Secretary of War Pete Hegseth told Human Events Daily that the firing squad execution of Major Nidal Malik Hasan would be public.
Hasan, a former U.S. Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people in a shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009.
The execution of Hasan will be the first U.S. military firing squad execution since WWII.
He will be executed on December 3 at 1 pm.
“Of course we’re doing it at Fort Hood. We’re going to do it on a Thursday. We’re going to do it at 1 o’clock, which is when he did it. It’s going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad,” Hegseth explained.
“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,” he added.
Watch below:
Secretary Hegseth was asked about the execution of Nidal Hasan:
"No-brainer—execution by firing squad…
Of course we're doing it at Fort Hood. We're going to do it at 1 o'clock—which is when he did it. It's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad." pic.twitter.com/QqjJrAZK41
— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) October 8, 2026
Human Events Daily shared further:
“Has Major Hassan made any final request, reached out to the president, anything like that, to your knowledge,” Posobiec asked.
“Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
Hegseth made the revelation to Posobiec after the two traveled together to San Diego to welcome home the sailors aboard the USS Lincoln, who had been at sea on a mission in the Middle East for 320 days. Their first port stop was in Thailand before they made their way back home. They were at sea conducting operations for more than 10 months without a single mishap.
“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. He killed 13 people and wounded 32 others while shouting ‘Allahu Akbar’ during the attack,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said.
“The Secretary of the Army will set the time and place of the execution. Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” he added.
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. He killed 13 people and wounded…
— Sean Parnell (@SeanParnellASW) October 5, 2026
NPR has more:
But Hasan could delay those proceedings if he files a habeas corpus appeal in the federal courts, said Robin Maher, executive director of the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center.
“The fact that the president has approved Mr. Hasan’s death sentence is another step closer to his execution,” Maher said. “But that does not mean that his execution will be imminent.”
ADVERTISEMENTFor example, Ronald Gray, who committed multiple rapes and murders near Fort Bragg in the 1980s, is still on military death row despite having had his sentence approved by President George W. Bush in 2008.
It’s not clear why the Pentagon is moving forward now, or why it specifically chose a firing squad as the execution method. But some death penalty experts that NPR interviewed suspect it could be connected to Tennessee’s botched lethal injection of Christa Pike, which has dominated headlines and reignited debate over the past week.
