Donald Trump and his advisers are debating whether to call off plans to livestream the firing squad execution of the Fort Hood shooter, with Trump having remarked privately that he did not initially know that Nidal Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down, two sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.

The president was not aware that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was announcing last week that the administration planned to let the public watch the execution, the sources said, and was not sure what to make of it at first. Trump was, however, firmly behind the decision to execute Hasan via firing squad, multiple officials told CNN, and he’s often defended it in public.

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[–] 16 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

One thing trump is great at, seeing how this is going to be a bad look.

And even after Hegseth posted on X on Thursday confirming that the Pentagon planned to livestream the execution, Trump polled several of his advisers and allies about how to proceed.

It was during the those conversations that Trump learned Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down — he was shot in the back by law enforcement during the 2009 shooting at Ford Hood — and that he now uses a wheelchair, the sources said, which made showing the execution publicly less palatable to the president.

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  • [–] 11 points 5 hours ago (1 child)

    I find it ludicrous that he even thinks there's anything existing in the universe that could make him look worse than he already does. Alas, narcissists will always find a way.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 hours ago

    The magic of the Trump machine is that he always finds a way to say the quiet part a little louder.

    Executing a wheelchair bound man as a media spectacle would be one more exclamation point on how American criminal justice functions.

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