House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that livestreaming the Fort Hood shooter’s firing-squad execution could hand terrorists a recruitment video, and other Republicans are pushing back hard.

House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Pentagon’s plan to publicly broadcast the execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan risks creating propaganda that future terrorists could use to recruit, The Hill reported.

Hasan’s execution by firing squad is scheduled for Dec. 3 in Texas. It would be the military’s first execution in more than six decades. President Trump already approved the sentence. He will make the final call on whether the public can watch.

Johnson told CBS News that lawmakers in his own party are uneasy about turning the death of a mass killer into a livestream spectacle. He said he has not spoken with Trump, Vice President JD Vance, or Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about the plan. He still intends to pass along what colleagues are saying.

“There are colleagues that have concerns,” Johnson said. “The concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists. We got to think through the policy implications of all that.”

That is a sober warning from the leader of the House. Hasan murdered 13 people at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009. He admitted the killings. He sought notoriety then. A public stream would hand it to him again.

Hegseth said the public would be able to watch

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced last week that the execution would be open to the public. In an Oct. 8 interview with Real America’s Voice, he put the plan in plain terms.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public,”

Hegseth said. The method is a firing squad. The date is locked for Dec. 3. What remains unsettled is whether cameras will roll for a national audience.

Johnson framed his role carefully. He is not the commander in chief. He is not running the Pentagon. He is the Speaker of the House, and he believes part of that job is telling the White House when members have doubts.

“My role as the leader of the legislative branch is to share my opinion,”

Johnson said. “It’s outside of my lane, of course, but I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody’s in favor of the idea.”

He also said he would not watch the livestream himself. That choice matters. Accountability for a convicted mass murderer does not require a public show. Justice can be carried out without giving radicals a clip to circulate.

Johnson’s willingness to raise those concerns fits a pattern of Speaker Johnson navigating high-stakes House fights while keeping the conference focused on core priorities.

Senate Republicans call the livestream plan a gift to enemies

Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, urged Hegseth to reverse course. She warned that a livestream would bring Hasan the notoriety he wants and help him cast himself as a martyr.

“There is no need to livestream any execution, including this one,”

Murkowski wrote on X. “I would expect this from terrorists and dictators, but not here in America.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., a frequent critic of Hegseth’s leadership at the Pentagon, went further. He supports the death penalty for Hasan. He rejects turning the execution into content.

“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,”

Tillis posted on X. He compared the idea to practices in adversarial countries and oppressive dictatorships.

Those are not soft-on-crime objections. They are hard-headed security objections. Hasan killed American soldiers and civilians on a U.S. base. The country has every right to carry out his sentence. It has no duty to film it for the world.

Johnson has spent recent weeks backing key House candidates ahead of the midterms, and this episode shows the same instinct: protect the country’s interests first, then manage the politics.

Fort Hood’s dead deserve justice, not a propaganda reel

In 2009, Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood. Thirteen people died. He was convicted and sentenced to death. For more than six decades, the military has not carried out an execution. That long gap is ending on Dec. 3.

Trump approved the execution. That decision closes a chapter the victims’ families have waited years to see finished. The separate question is broadcast. Trump will decide whether the public watches. Johnson’s message is simple: think through the downstream effects before the cameras go live.

A firing squad ends a murderer’s life. A livestream can outlive him. Terror networks already hunt for images and symbols. A clean, private carrying out of the sentence denies them that material. A public stream hands it over.

Johnson has also pressed foreign-policy restraint under midterm pressure, and the same common-sense test applies here. Do not give America’s enemies a free production.

None of this is complicated. Hasan earned the death penalty. The military can carry it out. Lawmakers across the Republican conference are telling the Pentagon and the White House that a public spectacle is a different choice, one with real security costs.

Johnson said he has not yet spoken directly with Trump, Vance, or Hegseth about the livestream. He still plans to share the conference’s concerns. That is how a legislative leader does the job: raise the risk, name the problem, and put it on the record before the date arrives.

His recent record of confronting Democratic leadership after left-wing primary wins shows a Speaker willing to speak plainly when the stakes are high. This is another case for plain speech.

Dec. 3 is coming. The sentence should be carried out. The video should not become a recruiting poster for the next radical who wants a stage.

Justice for Fort Hood does not require a livestream. It requires a finished sentence, and the discipline not to gift terrorists the footage.