Sen. Thom Tillis, the North Carolina Republican who once cast the deciding vote to confirm Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, publicly broke with the Pentagon on Thursday night over its plan to broadcast the execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan. He compared the idea to the practices of Iran and Afghanistan. Tillis made clear he supports the death penalty for Hasan, but not the spectacle the Defense Department intends to make of it.
Tillis posted his reaction to X at 9:07 PM on October 8, 2026, hours after Hegseth announced that the execution would be public. The post, in its entirety, read:
“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting. Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”
The Pentagon’s announcement
Tillis was responding directly to reporting from CBS News that the U.S. military plans to livestream the execution of Hasan, the former Army major convicted of the 2009 killing of 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas. A Pentagon official said Hasan will face a firing squad on Dec. 3.
Hegseth had said earlier Thursday that the Pentagon intended to make the execution public. “He’s gonna get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be,” Hegseth told Jack Posobiec on Real America’s Voice. “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 the execution will take place at Fort Hood at 1 p.m.
The Trump administration approved the execution plan earlier this week. Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media that the Army firing squad was recommended by Hegseth and approved by President Trump. Hegseth had previously signaled his resolve on the case, saying he was “100% committed to ensuring the death penalty is carried out for Nidal Hasan” and calling the former psychiatrist a “savage terrorist.”
A long road to the firing squad
Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, was convicted of murdering 13 people and injuring more than 30 in a 2013 court-martial. At trial he acknowledged responsibility for the shooting, saying he opened fire on fellow soldiers to protect Islamic insurgents from U.S. forces. He was sentenced to death.
The path to execution was long. Hasan represented himself at trial and clashed with his own court-appointed standby attorneys, who worried he was intentionally seeking the death penalty. In 2024, he asked the Supreme Court to review his case, arguing the judge had violated his right to a public trial by clearing the courtroom before discussing some issues with the attorneys. The high court declined to take it up last year.
The case could mark the military’s first execution of an American service member since 1961, when a soldier was hanged for raping and attempting to murder an 11-year-old girl. It would also be a rare use of a firing squad. Hegseth said “it hasn’t been since World War II since we’ve done that,” pointing to the military’s 1945 execution of Pvt. Eddie Slovik for desertion.
In civilian courts, South Carolina used the method three times last year, the country’s first firing squads since 2010. The federal government typically uses lethal injection, though the Justice Department said earlier this year that officials should consider other methods, including firing squads and electrocution.
Why a public execution is so unusual
While executions are sometimes witnessed by small groups, including reporters and victims’ family members, it is virtually unheard-of in recent history for one in the United States to be viewable by the general public. The last public execution in the country appears to have taken place in 1936, when Rainey Bethea was hanged for rape in Kentucky, reportedly drawing a crowd of around 20,000.
Geoffrey Corn, a Texas Tech University law professor who served in the Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Corps, said the plan “raises significant moral questions, above and beyond the questions related to the death penalty generally.” He added that normal protocol limits the gallery of observers, which “usually includes people close to the victims and certain members of the media,” and warned that turning an execution into “some type of public spectacle echoes of the past we seem to have put behind us.”
The comparison Tillis drew
Tillis’s reference to Afghanistan has a recent precedent. In December 2022, the Taliban carried out its first public execution since returning to power, at a crowded stadium in Farah province. The UN human rights office called it “deeply disturbing,” and the U.S. government denounced it as “despicable.”
Tillis and Hegseth: a relationship in reverse
Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, served on the Senate Armed Services Committee for eight years. In January 2025 he cast a crucial vote to confirm Hegseth, then spent much of 2026 criticizing him. This summer he said Hegseth had “lost my confidence” as scrutiny of the administration’s war with Iran grew.
On Sept. 2, after Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation, Tillis blamed Hegseth’s management for the departure and urged Trump to replace him. “I have never witnessed more inept management,” he said, asking for a leader who would retain and empower military talent rather than diminish it.
Tillis went further in a new book published this week, “How to Lose Friends and Antagonize Presidents,” calling his Hegseth vote the “biggest regret of my career.” He also predicts a “bloodbath” for Republicans in the November midterms.
What comes next
CBS News said it has reached out to Hasan’s attorney for comment. The Pentagon has set Dec. 3 at Fort Hood as the date for the execution, which would be the first by the U.S. military in more than six decades. Whether the livestream draws further objections from lawmakers, or from within the military, remains to be seen.