For the first time in decades, the military’s firing squad will carry out an execution on December 3 at 1 PM at Fort Hood. Hegseth, who has received President Donald Trump’s approval, said the timing was deliberate.

"We're going to do it on a Thursday... at one o'clock, which is when he did it, and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad" — because "people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things." 

Trump backed the decision on Friday: "Death penalty through firing squad, and he deserves it."

The announcement became a hot topic of conversation among members of the chattering class, and reactions have been mixed. 

Podcaster and Washington Examiner contributor Brad Polumbo said he is “philosophically opposed to the death penalty” but said he’s “not exactly sure what’s so bad about doing it via firing squad or in public view.”

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I get the objection to it being a spectacle... but also, if we're, as a society, going to literally kill someone, why shouldn't we be forced to observe what we are doing rather than look away and have it handled behind closed doors?

Reporter Lara Logan expressed support for the idea, asking, “why should we worry about upsetting people who already want us dead?”

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) wrote, “There is no doubt that Nidal Hasan is a murderer who took the lives of 13 people and injured dozens.”

But a public execution? Here in the United States? It’s the kind of thing Iran and the Taliban do. Is this who we want to be associated with? Pete Hegseth’s campaign of “maximum lethality” and his comments about “killing people” and now his desire to publicly execute a prisoner indicate to me that his expiration date in this job has long passed. He should be removed immediately. And this administration needs to reevaluate its priorities.

Republican Rep. Andy Ogles (TN-5) wrote, “Excellent. Public execution is what this terrorist deserves. We will be watching.”

Retro Coast asked whether anyone “considered the PR consequences of livestreaming the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan?”

He is today an elderly man with graying hair. A wheelchair-bound parapalegic.

Rolling an elderly man in a wheelchair out to be executed by firing squad is NOT the PR win that Hegseth thinks it is. 

It won't be like a dramatic TV show. It will be tawdry and ugly.

It will probably backfire.

Hegseth referred to Hasan’s actions as “a radical Islamist attack in uniform inside the ranks” and that he linked “the mentality we had in World War II, which was win, which was understand when the enemy attacks you, you need to stand your ground.”