Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley publicly rebuked the idea of public executions on Friday, naming four of the world’s most heavily criticized regimes and armed groups as the only entities still carrying them out. Her message came one day after the Pentagon confirmed that the U.S. Army’s planned firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be livestreamed.
Haley posted the statement to X at 2:28 p.m. on Friday, October 9, 2026. The full post reads:
“Who still carries out public executions:
The Iranian regime
The North Korean regime
The Taliban in Afghanistan
Al-Shabaab in SomaliaThat is not the company we want to keep or the country we want to be.”
What the Post Says
The post is built as a short list. Haley names four actors: the government of Iran, the government of North Korea, the Taliban authorities in Afghanistan, and the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab. Each is widely characterized as an authoritarian or extremist power, and her framing places them together as the ones that still stage executions in public view.
Her closing sentence turns the list into a statement about American identity. By saying the practice is “not the company we want to keep or the country we want to be,” Haley set the choice as one about the kind of country the United States wants to be, not as a legal question.
The post did not mention Hasan, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth or the Pentagon by name. It was published the day after news of the livestream plan became public.
The Pentagon Announcement Behind the Post
The U.S. will livestream the Army’s upcoming firing squad execution of a gunman who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, the Pentagon said, in what would be an unprecedented broadcast of a U.S. execution.
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, is set to become the first person executed by firing squad by the U.S. military since 1945. The execution is scheduled for December 3 at the same Texas base where he opened fire in a medical facility with a laser-sighted handgun.
“It will be livestreamed. Details will follow,” a Pentagon official told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity. Hegseth, who championed the push to execute Hasan by firing squad, confirmed the livestream plans in a post on X.
Hegseth’s Stated Rationale
Hegseth told the Human Events Daily program that choosing a firing squad at Fort Hood on a Thursday at 1 p.m. was a “no-brainer.” Those details match the approximate time, day of the week and location of the 2009 shooting.
“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, he replied: “Don’t care. We’ll see him on December 3.”
The remarks place the argument for a public viewing in terms of deterrence and consequences. Haley’s post, though it does not respond to him directly, argues from the opposite premise: that public execution is the practice of regimes the United States should not resemble.
How Hasan Reached This Point
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. Police shot him during his arrest, leaving him partially paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair.
Hasan exhausted his appeals in 2025. In September 2025, Hegseth said he was “100 percent committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan,” describing him as a “savage terrorist” who “deserves the harshest lawful punishment.”
Presidential Approval
Under U.S. military law, a president must approve an execution by firing squad. President Donald Trump did so on Hegseth’s recommendation, the Pentagon said on Monday. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a post on X that Hegseth “has recommended — and President Donald J. Trump has approved — death by U.S. Army firing squad for convicted terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan.” Parnell added: “Judgement day for Hasan has finally come.”
The White House declined to say whether Trump supported the livestreaming, referring questions to the Pentagon.
A Broadcast With No Known Precedent
No other country is known to televise or livestream a legal execution, experts told Reuters. Media outlets have sought to televise U.S. executions in the past but have been blocked by the courts.
Eugene Fidell, a military law expert who lectures at Yale Law School, said it would be “extremely, extremely strange” to livestream the event. He said Hasan would need to sue in federal court to block a public display. Historian Jonathan Lurie, an author on 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?” he said.
The History of Public Executions in the U.S. and Abroad
Public executions have become exceedingly rare worldwide. Among countries known to conduct them in recent years are Iran and Taliban-run Afghanistan, two of the four actors Haley named.
In the United States, the last legally sanctioned public execution was conducted in 1936, death penalty experts said. Thousands watched the hanging of a young Black man convicted of raping a white woman. Extrajudicial lynchings, often by white mobs targeting Black Americans, were public spectacles well into the 20th century.
A Broader Death Penalty Debate
The livestream plan comes amid heightened debate in the U.S. over capital punishment following the botched lethal injection of a Tennessee woman last week. Plans to execute Christa Pike, the first woman Tennessee would have executed in more than 200 years, went awry when prison personnel failed to administer the injection. Pike was left alive but hospitalized, and her lawyers said she awoke “angry and confused.”
Firing squad is one of several forms of capital punishment the Trump administration recently added to the permissible forms of execution for the gravest federal crimes, along with electrocution and gas asphyxiation. The expansion came in part because of increasing difficulty obtaining lethal injection drugs. At least five states have firing squads on the books, and South Carolina carried out the first such execution in the U.S. in 15 years in 2025.
Haley’s Record on the Death Penalty
Haley has previously supported capital punishment in high-profile cases. In June 2015, two days after nine people were killed at a Bible study at a Charleston church, she said on a national morning show that the state would want the gunman to receive the death penalty. “We… absolutely will want him to have the death penalty. This is the worst hate that I’ve seen and that the country has seen in a long time,” she said. As governor, she had no power over the prosecution or sentencing.
Her 2026 post does not address capital punishment itself. It objects to the public nature of executions, which suggests her position is aimed at the manner and display of an execution, not at the penalty.
What Comes Next
Hasan’s execution is scheduled for December 3. A legal challenge is possible, since Fidell said the Supreme Court has never addressed whether public display of an execution is constitutional. Hasan would need to sue in federal court to try to block it.
The Pentagon has said details of the livestream will follow. Haley’s post adds a prominent Republican voice to a debate over whether the U.S. should broadcast a government killing, a practice her post says is carried out only by the regimes and militant groups she listed.