Former U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Virginia Republican turned outspoken critic of his party’s direction, said late Thursday that the Pentagon’s plan to livestream an Army firing squad execution is a political play aimed at the November midterm elections. The former congressman, who also served as an Air Force intelligence officer, delivered his verdict in a short post on X that drew immediate attention to what the Defense Department intends to put on screen in December.
In the post, published at 10:24 p.m. on October 8, 2026, Riggleman wrote:
“Public executions are about the midterms. Getting MAGA excited.
That’s where we are as a country.”
The post responds to an announcement this week that the United States will livestream the Army’s execution of Nidal Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas in 2009. A Pentagon official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity: “It will be livestreamed. Details will follow.” The broadcast would be unprecedented for a U.S. execution.
The Plan Riggleman Is Reacting To
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who championed the push to execute Hasan by firing squad, confirmed the livestream plans in his own X post. The execution is scheduled for December 3 at Fort Hood, the same sprawling Texas base where Hasan opened fire with a laser-sighted handgun in a medical facility. If carried out, Hasan would become the first person executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since 1945.
Under U.S. military law, a president must approve an execution by firing squad. The Pentagon said on Monday that President Donald Trump did so on Hegseth’s recommendation. The White House declined to say whether Trump supports livestreaming the execution and referred questions to the Pentagon.
Hegseth: “A No-Brainer”
Speaking on the Human Events Daily program, Hegseth said that choosing to execute Hasan at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m. was a “no-brainer.” The choice mirrors the approximate time, day of the week and location of the 2009 shooting. On the question of public access, Hegseth said: “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.”
Asked whether Hasan had made any final requests, Hegseth answered: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
Who Is Denver Riggleman
Riggleman represented Virginia’s 5th Congressional District from 2019 to 2021 and spent 15 years in the Air Force, rising from an enlisted avionics technician to an intelligence officer. He later served as a senior technical adviser to the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and wrote the book The Breach about that investigation. His national security background also includes work as a consultant for the Pentagon’s electronic warfare and countermeasures office.
That résumé gives his reading of the Pentagon’s plan particular weight in defense circles. He is a veteran of the intelligence community who now characterizes a military execution, in his own words, as a mobilization tool for the president’s political base.
Experts Question the Livestream
Legal and historical experts interviewed by Reuters questioned the decision on separate grounds. Eugene Fidell, a military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said it would be “extremely, extremely strange” to livestream the event. He added that Hasan would need to sue in federal court to block a public display of his death. Fidell also noted that “The Supreme Court has never addressed this question.”
Jonathan Lurie, an author and historian of military justice, said there are no compelling reasons to make the execution public. “What’s the point of it? Who would want to see that?” Lurie said.
A Practice Largely Abandoned
Public executions have become exceedingly rare worldwide, with Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan among the countries known to conduct them in recent years. No other country is known to televise or livestream a legal execution. Media outlets have sought to televise U.S. executions in the past but have been blocked by the courts.
The last legally sanctioned public execution in the United States took place in 1936, death penalty experts said. Thousands watched the hanging of a young Black man convicted of raping a white woman.
The Hasan Case
A military jury sentenced Hasan to death in August 2013 after finding him guilty of 45 counts of premeditated murder and attempted premeditated murder. The shooting came weeks before Hasan, now 56, was scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan. He was left partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair after being shot by police during his arrest.
The timing adds another layer to the debate. The announcement comes amid heightened U.S. debate over the death penalty following the botched lethal injection of a Tennessee woman last week.
Expanding the Methods of Execution
Firing squads are one of several forms of capital punishment the Trump administration recently added to the permissible methods for the gravest federal crimes, along with electrocution and gas asphyxiation. The expansion came in part because of increasing difficulties in obtaining drugs for lethal injections, which have also sometimes proved challenging to carry out. 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.
What Comes Next
The Pentagon has not released further details on how the broadcast would work, saying only that more information will follow. Riggleman’s post, now circulating widely, frames the central question for observers: whether the livestream is about justice for the 13 victims of the 2009 attack or about the political moment. Hegseth has said publicly that the purpose is to show “serious consequences,” while Riggleman says the effect is to energize the president’s base months before voters head to the polls.
With the December 3 date roughly eight weeks away and the midterms closer still, the dispute is likely to sharpen as the Pentagon releases its plans.