Why 69% of Americans — Including Most Republicans — Would Rather Not Watch the Hasan Execution

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The number is striking enough on its own — but it becomes more striking when you follow it across party lines. Only 18% of Americans favor live-broadcasting executions, while 69% oppose it, according to the October 10–12 Economist/YouGov Poll. That resistance holds even inside the Republican base, where a majority rejects the idea — and it lands at a moment when the White House has yet to finalize whether the December 3 firing squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan will be streamed online.

That one decision — to livestream or not — is now driving a rare stretch of bipartisan reflection on how far the country is willing to go in making state-sanctioned death a public spectacle.

A Rare Bipartisan Rebuke

Republican lawmakers and Catholic leaders have broken with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who announced plans to broadcast the execution of former Army Maj. Nidal Hasan as a public livestream. The backlash crosses party lines in ways that have grown genuinely uncommon in today's political climate.

Republican Rep. Austin Scott, who supports putting Hasan to death, nonetheless drew a clear line: "livestreaming executions is what jihadists do." The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops went further, with its president Archbishop Paul Coakley condemning the plan as a "barbaric promotion of a culture of death" and calling on the administration to reconsider it.

Even Vice President JD Vance put public distance between himself and Hegseth's announcement, telling reporters he did not know that the broadcast was "actually going to happen" and that he would not be watching if it did. President Trump, for his part, has said the administration is still working through its position, telling reporters: "We're making a determination about that."

The Hasan Case: What Is at Stake

Hasan was convicted in 2013 of 13 counts of premeditated murder and 32 counts of attempted premeditated murder for the November 2009 shooting at Fort Hood, Texas. He has remained on death row at Fort Leavenworth since his sentencing. Acting Army Secretary Adam Telle confirmed the December 3 execution date and location — Fort Hood itself, the site of the original attack. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth separately announced the execution would be made public, stating: "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public."

If the broadcast proceeds, it would make Hasan's execution the first public execution in the United States in roughly 90 years — since Rainey Bethea was hanged in Owensboro, Kentucky, on August 14, 1936. Among Americans who already support the death penalty, opposition to a livestream still clocks in at 55%, according to the YouGov data — meaning even those who back capital punishment as policy draw a line at turning an execution into a broadcast event.

Death Penalty Support vs. Execution Theater

The data exposes a critical fault line in American opinion: supporting the death penalty and supporting the public visibility of executions are two fundamentally different propositions.

In the same YouGov poll, 51% of Americans said they favor the death penalty for murder. Three-quarters of Republicans back it. Independents are nearly twice as likely to favor it as to oppose it. Yet those same respondents reject a publicly streamed execution by margins that, in places, border on consensus.

Eighty-seven percent of Democrats and 92% of death penalty opponents oppose livestreaming. Independents reject it at 67%. Non-MAGA Republicans come in at 62% opposed. A July 2026 Pew Research survey put overall death penalty support even higher, at 66% — which makes the gap between general support for capital punishment and the near-universal resistance to broadcasting it all the more pronounced.

On method, the public also has clear preferences when forced to choose. The YouGov poll found that 46% of Americans believe lethal injection should be used if the death penalty is imposed, compared with 31% who back firing squads, 20% who favor electrocution, and 18% who support hanging.

Tennessee's Botched Execution Adds Pressure

The debate over Hasan's execution does not exist in isolation. On September 30, Tennessee attempted to execute Christa Pike, the only woman on the state's death row. After two separate doses of the sedative pentobarbital were administered, Pike remained alive — witnesses reported she appeared to be snoring. She was transported to a hospital, still conscious.

Robin Maher, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center, called it "the worst we've seen and unlike any other botched execution in the modern era." Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee ordered an independent review and suspended all remaining state executions for the rest of 2026.

It was the second time in 2026 that Tennessee was unable to complete a scheduled execution. In May, executioners spent more than an hour attempting to establish an IV line for Tony Carruthers before the procedure was called off. The back-to-back failures have renewed calls from abolitionists and prompted even some death penalty supporters to question how the government can carry out executions humanely — a debate that feeds directly into the arguments surrounding the Hasan livestream.

The 90-Year Line America Hasn't Crossed

The United States effectively ended public executions by the late 1930s, a shift that reflected changing views about state-sanctioned violence and its effects on civic life. From the Revolutionary era into the early 20th century, executions were frequently public events and sometimes drew mass crowds. The Kentucky legislature banned them in 1938, two years after Rainey Bethea's hanging embarrassed the state nationally. No public execution has taken place in the United States since.

Brenner Fissell, vice president of the National Institute of Military Justice, has said public executions "are seen by most civilized societies as grotesque and barbaric" — a view consistent with the trajectory of nearly every European nation, which has abolished capital punishment altogether.

As Trump weighs his final call on the Hasan broadcast, the polling makes one thing clear: Americans are prepared to accept the death penalty as policy. What they are not prepared to accept is a front-row seat.

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