STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Trump says the United States will not livestream the execution of a man behind the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood in Texas. Trump posted online Thursday that he felt a public execution would be a, quote, "strong deterrent," but he acknowledged that many people object. Some people are strongly in favor of executions, even in public. And NPR's domestic extremism correspondent Odette Yousef has been looking into where that idea came from. Odette, good morning.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: OK, first, what's Trump's decision about?
YOUSEF: Well, Steve, for context, it's important to know that the 2009 attack at Fort Hood was carried out by a former U.S. Army major who was a violent radical Islamist named Nidal Hasan. NPR has learned that there were a couple of reasons Trump changed his mind about livestreaming Hassan's execution by firing squad. First, Trump was persuaded that it would go against American values. And second, there was a concern that livestreaming this could feed radical jihadist propaganda, bring in more recruits and potentially put U.S. forces in the Middle East at greater risk.
INSKEEP: Yeah. You can imagine the different ways someone would use that video. But where did the idea of a public execution come from?
YOUSEF: In this context, it came from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Hegseth announced the plan last week, Steve, during an interview with a right-wing media outlet. And almost immediately, political and religious leaders reacted with disgust. But within certain strands of the Christian nationalist movement, Steve, Hegseth's proposal was not shocking. And we're specifically talking about groups that would like to see Old Testament biblical law become the law of the land. Here's Julie Ingersoll. She's a professor of religious studies at the University of North Florida.
JULIE INGERSOLL: The crimes discussed in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament that carried the death penalty are understood by them to still carry the death penalty. So execution, and even public execution, is very much a part of the way they see punishment for crime in general.
YOUSEF: And the church with which Hegseth affiliates, called the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches, is among those that hold, you know, these goals and these beliefs.
INSKEEP: OK. So we're talking about ancient ideas here but not ones that have been practiced recently in the United States. The last time the U.S. government publicly executed someone was 90 years ago. So what do you make of the idea that we're having this discussion almost a century later?
YOUSEF: Well, you know, as shocking as this was to many Americans, Steve, there is evidence that this idea has already leaked outside certain small churches like Hegseth's. You know, in 2024, the late hard-right political activist Charlie Kirk discussed the death penalty on a podcast. He said the death penalty, quote, "should be public." It "should be quick. It should be televised." And he even suggested that corporations could shore up public coffers by underwriting these events. Now, Kirk was not considered an extremist within the modern GOP. In fact, he was largely credited with revitalizing a whole new generation of young Republican voters. So I do not think that this idea will be going away, and there's concern that now that it's been introduced back into public discourse by someone in a position of high authority - you know, the defense - the secretary of defense - the normalization process has begun.
INSKEEP: OK. NPR's Odette Yousef. Thanks so much.
YOUSEF: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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