It can be said that many ethical lines have been crossed by the Trump administration in its second term of power in the United States. Be it the apparently unaccountable actions of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) against legal migrants, the administration’s refusal to find fault with Israel’s actions in Gaza, the illegal war against Iran which saw the bombing of a girls school or the use of drones, gunships and fighter jets against fishing vessels in the Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea, all of these represent a hardline approach to issues which previous administrations have taken a more nuanced approach towards.
Unfortunately, the announcement on Thursday 9 October by US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth that the execution of Nidal Hasan, who fatally shot thirteen unarmed US soldiers at the Fort Hood military base in 2009, would be livestreamed, marked not only a new low for the administration but a definitive psychological shift into a very dark and reprehensible place for a country which regards itself as the bastion of values for the western world. Mercifully, the plans for the broadcast have now been cancelled by President Donald Trump.
However, for the self-proclaimed “Secretary of War”, this kind of rhetoric was nothing new. His commentsfollowing the initial attacks on Iran in March that "This was never meant to be a fair fight and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they're down, which is exactly how it should be," and “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight,” were rightly met with disdain at the time by many in the world’s political community. These have proven to be foolish and misguided, given that six months later the US still has no military solution for how to end a conflict it started, yet somehow his latest attempt at a projection of power has managed to shape his reputation into that of an even greater hard-liner.
It is certainly not for me to decide the punishment of a person who took thirteen lives and injured dozens more but the mannerism and language of Pete Hegseth, who proclaimed Hasan was "gonna get a firing squad of soldiers - as it should be" was delivered with the kind of fervour once reserved for the sort of military leaders the US used to condemn and invade countries to remove. But they should be held accountable to the laws of the country by its judicial system which should be clear and unambiguous and not be open to interpretation. And in today's world, the US should be seen as setting an example in ethical and moral judgements, as well as in so many other ways.
The last public execution in the United States took place in 1936. According to Amnesty International, there were more than 2,700 executions across seventeen countries last year but only two nations carried them out publicly: Iran and Afghanistan. Two countries the US military knows well. And countries that the West has been criticising for their barbarity.
In the 21st century, legal execution is still very much a divisive subject, regardless of the crime(s) committed. Broadcasting such an event, which nowadays can be distributed worldwide within seconds, stored for an eternity and accessed by anyone with an internet connection - regardless of age - takes the subject into new and dangerous areas. Were we really going to have a state-sanction snuff movie served up to all? As an idea, it’s not that far-fetched.
30 years ago American comedian George Carlin performed a sketch about how the US government would eventually turn to live executions as a means of entertainment designed to distract voters from the nefarious machinations of the 1%. To say it was prescient would be an understatement. Depressingly, it succinctly shows how the words and actions of many in the Trump administration have now reached darkly comedic proportions of their own.
The question is, how long will this type of rhetoric continue and to what end?
Make no mistake, despite the cancellation of the broadcast this is a disturbing turn and signals a new paradigm in what this administration believes it can do with impunity, setting a frightening precedent for what may follow. Even if it did reveal that Pete Hegseth understands neither the law nor due process, it also showed he doesn’t particularly care anyway.
According to US military law, any military execution requires approval from the US president. It also requires a review from a higher court where it inspects the decision and gives a final judgement on its legality. Hours after Pete Hegseth announced his plans for the livestream coverage of the execution, President Trump said he "absolutely" approved of the plan but said the Pentagon was still "making a determination" on it. Someone or, more likely, several people, obviously informed him of how precarious such an event would be. It was also not be a good look for the administration with midterm elections on the horizon. However, much like Hegseth, the president’s initial comments showed he doesn’t particularly care either. This was a volte face to save face.
At the time of the announcement even US Vice-President JD Vance expressed uncertainty to reporters about whether the execution would go ahead as planned, and stated: “If it's through livestream, I'm not going to be watching it.”
It makes you ask, who exactly was this for?
Capital punishment in the US has only recently been under the spotlight again following the botched executionof Christa Pike. Between 1999 and 2024, instances of capital punishment in the US have been, on average, on the decline. However, they rose from 25 in 2024 to 47 in 2025, a change mainly attributed to a dramatic increase in executions in Florida, which alone accounted for nineteen executions, or 40% of the year’s total. So far this year, ten military veterans were executed, seven of them in Florida. This represents the highest number of veterans executed in almost 20 years.
The Death Penalty Information Centre attributed this increase to the 2024 return to the White House of Donald Trump. On his first day back he issued an executive order on restoring the death penalty in which he said it was “an essential tool for deterring and punishing those who would commit the most heinous crimes.”
Compare and contrast this to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden - the most wanted man in the world for almost ten years - by the US Armed Forces in May 2011, under the Obama administration. Following his death, Bin Laden’s body was flown by the US military to Afghanistan for identification, then to the USS Carl Vinson in the Arabian Sea, from which it was buried at sea in accordance with Islamic customs.
If that had taken place during the Trump administration, one can only imagine the kind of spectacle that would have been arranged for the media. It may have even taken place on the White House lawn. Even George Carlin would have struggled to foresee that.
How does this bode for the future of the US under this administration? The actions of the country’s authorities continue to push the boundaries of both political and human decency to ever more worrying extremes - not only in the theatre of wars overseas but increasingly so within its own borders, and the country’s voters are starting to grow weary. On the other hand, maybe if their cost of living had not been rising (most American elections are based on how the economy is doing), American voters may have overlooked these callous acts.
Public and private voting polls currently envisage a paradigm shift in voting habits in the upcoming midterm elections. Trump began his second term as president with an approval rating of just over 50%. According to polling resource website Silver Bulletin, it is now 37.5%.
Should Trump lose badly in those elections and the powers in Congress shift the majority, and the power, to the Democrats his reaction is likely to be difficult to ignore. Suggestions range from him calling the election unfair or at the extreme claiming a national emergency and attempting to invoke martial law to prevent the election results from taking effect. That may sound far-fetched, but this is the man who continues to employ Pete Hegseth, despite his myriad failures as Defence Secretary, and was, initially, happy to endorse the live broadcasting of a military execution.
Dark days indeed, and we have little choice but to watch.
