The chairman of the US Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, has said he would leave the decision on whether television networks could broadcast the planned execution of former Army psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan to War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Hasan was convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood shooting in Texas. The Pentagon announced on Thursday that his execution by firing squad was scheduled to be livestreamed on December 3, although it has yet to clarify whether major broadcast television networks would carry the feed.
Carr made the remarks amid growing opposition to the proposed livestream from lawmakers in both parties and uncertainty expressed by Vice President JD Vance over whether the broadcast would take place.
“Ultimately, we’re going to defer to Secretary Hegseth and, you know, his decisions on how to move forward with this,” Carr said in an interview with CNBC.
The FCC chairman said he understood that the execution would not be shown on broadcast television, while indicating that Hegseth would determine how the Pentagon intended to proceed.
Although the FCC regulates broadcast communications in the United States, questions have emerged over whether the agency has the legal authority to compel television stations to broadcast an execution or prevent them from showing footage of the event.
Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a senior counsellor at the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, told Reuters that the agency had no legal basis to direct broadcasters to air or refuse to air footage of an actual event.
Major television networks, including ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox, had not immediately responded to requests for comment on whether they were considering carrying the execution, Reuters reported.
Vance also expressed uncertainty about the Pentagon’s plan while speaking to reporters in Ohio on Friday.
“I don’t know that that’s actually going to happen,” Vance said, adding that he would not watch the livestream if it went ahead.
The vice president urged the public to remain mindful of the victims of the Fort Hood attack, in which Hasan killed 13 people and wounded 32 others.
The proposal has drawn criticism from members of both the Republican and Democratic parties, including lawmakers who support Hasan’s death sentence but oppose making the execution available to the public.
Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina condemned the proposed broadcast despite backing the death penalty for Hasan.
“Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” Tillis wrote on X.
He added that public executions were associated with oppressive regimes and should not take place in the United States.
Republican Representative Austin Scott of Georgia also supported Hasan’s death sentence but rejected the plan to livestream his execution.
“America is better than that,” Scott said.
Representative Rob Bresnahan, a Republican from Pennsylvania, said the focus should instead remain on justice for the victims and their families.
Their pain, he said, “deserves respect, not a public show.”
Democratic lawmakers similarly called on the administration to abandon the proposal.
Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, urged the Trump administration to reconsider the planned livestream. He described the proposal as a “barbaric spectacle” and warned that it could serve as a recruitment tool for anti-American terrorist groups.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut, also criticised the idea during an interview with CNN, describing public executions as “medieval”.
The president of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Paul Coakley, joined the criticism, saying the plan promoted a “culture of death”.
Coakley also warned that publicly broadcasting the execution could damage the United States’ moral standing.
President Donald Trump approved Hasan’s execution by firing squad following a recommendation from the Pentagon. Trump reiterated on Friday that Hasan would face the death penalty but had not publicly commented on the controversy surrounding the proposed livestream, according to Reuters.
Hasan was convicted by a military jury in 2013 on 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder over the November 5, 2009, attack at Fort Hood, Texas.
If the execution proceeds as scheduled, it would mark the first US military execution since 1961 and the first military execution by firing squad since 1945, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
