Trump isn't “particularly enthusiastic” about Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream a military execution in December.
Page B41From§Eachthe evening edition — 13 October 2026
Pentagon's livestreamed execution moves ahead in December, even though the president isn't "particularly enthusiastic" about it.
As it ran on the front
Died this week, after a short and entirely survivable illness: the custom that a federal execution is carried out, not broadcast. The file was already open on October 9, when the United Nations' top human rights expert told reporters that livestreaming an execution "is tantamount to a public execution" and would breach the "absolute prohibition" on torture under international law. The comparison went unanswered. The plan did not move.
It did not move again a few days later, when House Speaker Mike Johnson offered the only review anyone had conducted so far and said he personally would not be watching. That is his set, and his remote; the execution proceeded on its own schedule, unaffected by his viewing preferences, which is the nature of a preference. A survivor of the 2009 shooting weighed in too, on a broadcast decision no office had ever asked them to approve — the first review conducted by someone who was actually shot, and the only one with no vote.…
…(cont) This week the file picked up two more names. Reporting Monday said President Trump himself is not "particularly enthusiastic" about the livestream his own defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has scheduled for December — a man voicing private reservations about an order he remains free, at any hour, to rescind. And a daughter of one of the thirteen killed at Fort Hood told the New York Post, in plainer English than Geneva uses, what the UN's lawyers had already said in diplomatic language: "This does not bring anyone's family back. Livestreaming isn't closure for any of us." They added that the broadcast has "nothing to do with justice." They are, notably, the only party to this file with a personal stake in the outcome who was never consulted about it.
The plan survives all of this the way plans survive: on paper, past the objection of the people who study torture for a living, past the discomfort of the man who could end it with a phone call he hasn't made, past the daughter of the dead. Nobody with the authority to stop it has used it; everybody with a reason to stop it has already said so, on the record, in order. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that whichever office still holds the authority to cancel a broadcast remember that it has one.
“They want you to think the president's queasy stomach is a brake pedal — it's not, because "not particularly enthusiastic" was never a veto, it's just the sound a man makes while signing off on something he could stop with one call and isn't making. The machine doesn't need him excited, it just needs him quiet, and quiet is exactly what he's giving it. Ask the daughter who has to watch her father's death get a December air date whether anybody's private hesitation bought her a single thing.”
“The man was convicted of killing thirteen American soldiers; nobody should expect the Pentagon to apologize for following through on a sentence quickly and in public. The president's private hesitation just shows he's a careful, deliberate commander weighing every angle before — actually, didn't we also brief that he never second-guesses national security calls? Did I say that? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Speaker says he just wouldn't watch the execution the UN already warned is torture. By Ruth · the morning edition, 13 October 2026
- Government calls its livestreamed execution optional, then a restoration of American values, then something to be happy about. By Lou · the evening edition, 11 October 2026
- Homeland Security defends livestreamed execution that no official admits ordering By Chip · the morning edition, 11 October 2026
- Pentagon confirms Fort Hood execution livestream; Trump denies involvement, then vows to decide it himself By Lou · the morning edition, 11 October 2026
- Tennessee has preserved the syringes from the execution Christa Pike survived, which is also the condition a thing is kept in when you intend to use it again. By The Wrecking Crew · the evening edition, 11 October 2026
The receipts
The UN torture rapporteur found direct-contact electric shock gloves "incompatible with the absolute prohibition of torture" — ICE plans to spend up to $20 million on them ABC10 San Diego / UN Special Rapporteur finding, August 2026
UN Says Trump-Hegseth Livestream of Execution Would Breach ‘Absolute Prohibition of Torture’As rights advocates across the US expressed horror at the Trump administration's confirmed plans to publicly broadcast the execution of Nidal Hasan, the former military psychiatrist who was convicted of killing 13 people in a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009, the top United Nations human rights expert warned that the public state…
"This does not bring anyone's family back. Livestreaming isn't closure for any of us," she said.
Pentagon said execution of Nidal Malik Hasan, who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, would be broadcast live US politics live – latest updates The US is facing worldwide condemnation over a “barbaric” plan to execute a disabled man by firing squad and livestream it to the public, with critics comparing the Trump administration to…
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.