Rhode Island House Minority Leader Michael W. Chippendale, a Republican, publicly condemned the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the firing squad execution of Fort Hood gunman Nidal Hasan on Thursday, calling the idea “barbaric” in a one-sentence post on X. The reaction sets a sitting Republican legislative leader against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who championed the execution and has said he wants the public to be able to watch it.
The Full Post
Chippendale’s post, published at 3:07 PM on Thursday, October 8, 2026, read in its entirety:
“That is barbaric, and has no place in a civil society.”
What Chippendale Was Responding To
The post came in response to reporting that the Army’s upcoming execution of Hasan will be broadcast live. Reuters reported that the Pentagon confirmed the plan, which would be an unprecedented broadcast of a U.S. execution. “It will be livestreamed. Details will follow,” a Pentagon official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hegseth confirmed the plans in a post of his own on X.
What the Pentagon Has Announced
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Monday that President Donald Trump had approved death by Army firing squad for Hasan on Hegseth’s recommendation. “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come,” Parnell wrote on X. The acting Secretary of the Army then announced that the execution will take place at Fort Hood, Texas, on Thursday, December 3, 2026, at 1 p.m. CT. If carried out, it would be the first military execution in the United States since 1961.
Hegseth has been blunt about both the symbolism and the spectacle. He said that choosing to execute Hasan at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m., roughly the time, day of the week and location of the 2009 shooting, was a “no-brainer.” “We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public. Because people need to understand that … there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” Hegseth said. Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth answered: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
Hegseth’s commitment to the sentence predates the livestream. In a statement released by the Pentagon in September 2025, he said: “I am 100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan. This savage terrorist deserves the harshest lawful punishment for his 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. The victims and survivors deserve justice without delays.”
Who Is Mike Chippendale
Chippendale represents District 40 in the Rhode Island House of Representatives, which covers Coventry, Foster and Glocester. First elected in November 2010, he was elevated to House Minority Leader by his Republican caucus in June 2022, after serving as Minority Whip, the caucus’s second-ranking post, since 2018. As Minority Leader, he is an ex-officio member of all House committees.
His official caucus profile describes him as an advocate for lower taxes and streamlined government and a proponent of Second Amendment rights. It also lists him as a former religious education instructor at St. Paul the Apostle Church. The profile is notable because Chippendale is a Republican, the same party as the president who approved the execution and the defense secretary who recommended it.
What the Post Does and Does Not Say
Chippendale’s statement is a single sentence. It does not name Hegseth, Hasan or the Pentagon, and it does not say whether his objection is limited to the broadcast or extends to the execution itself. The statement’s wording, calling the plan “barbaric” and saying it has “no place in a civil society,” frames the objection as a question of public decency.
Rhode Island has no death penalty. The state abolished capital punishment in 1984 and has not executed anyone since 1845. State law has no bearing on a military execution at Fort Hood.
Why Legal Experts Call the Plan Unprecedented
Reuters reported that media outlets have sought to televise U.S. executions in the past but have been blocked by the courts, and that no other country is known to televise or livestream a legal execution, according to experts. Eugene Fidell, a military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said it would be “extremely, extremely strange” to livestream the event. While firing squads have a long history in American military law, he said, as far as he knew a livestream or televised execution would be unprecedented.
Military justice historian Jonathan Lurie told Reuters there are no compelling reasons to make the execution public. “What’s the point of it? Who would want to see that?” Lurie said.
Public executions have become exceedingly rare worldwide, Reuters reported, with Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan among the countries known to have conducted them in recent years. The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States took place in 1936, according to death penalty experts. Extrajudicial lynchings, often by white mobs targeting Black Americans, were public spectacles well into the 20th century.
The Case Against Hasan
A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013 after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. He killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, weeks before he was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. Police shot him during his arrest, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. He is now 56.
Under U.S. military law, a president must approve an execution by firing squad, and Trump did so on Hegseth’s recommendation, the Pentagon said. The White House declined to say whether Trump supports the livestreaming and referred questions to the Pentagon. Hasan would be the first person executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since 1945.
The National Debate Over Executions
The plan arrives amid heightened debate over capital punishment. At least five states have firing squads on the books, and South Carolina carried out the first such execution in the United States in 15 years in 2025. The Trump administration recently added firing squad, electrocution and gas asphyxiation to the permissible methods of execution for the gravest federal crimes, in part because of increasing difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs.
Last week, Tennessee’s attempt to execute Christa Pike by lethal injection was botched, leaving her alive but hospitalized. Her lawyers said Wednesday that she woke “angry and confused” in a hospital, remains very sick and is shackled to her hospital bed.
What Happens Next
Fidell said Hasan would need to sue in federal court if he wanted to block a public display of his death, and that the Supreme Court has never addressed the question. With the execution set for December 3, the livestream plan faces a possible legal challenge, and a debate that Chippendale’s one-sentence post has now brought into the Republican Party’s own ranks.