By Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON, Oct 16 (Reuters) – As he took to the stage this week at an Army event, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remarked how much it looked like a TV set. The former Fox News host said that put him at ease, even as the first in a series of anti-war protesters shouted at him.
But Hegseth’s TV instincts, while perhaps one of the tools he relies on most in his Pentagon role, appear to have failed him on Thursday when President Donald Trump pulled the plug on his plans, announced last week, to livestream the Army’s firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan.
Trump had been unaware of Hegseth’s unprecedented plan to broadcast the execution, said a White House official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Many fellow Republicans, along with religious leaders and international observers, raised objections to the plan, and defense officials who spoke to Reuters on Thursday expressed relief that the livestreaming would not go forward.
Defense secretaries often cycle out after a couple of years in the job and speculation in Washington has mounted whether Trump might see value in bringing new management to the Pentagon after November’s midterm elections.
But Republican strategists said it was too soon to say whether Trump’s decision to overrule Hegseth would affect their relationship, which has remained strong despite mounting public opposition to the war in Iran.
“They’ve been kind of very closely knit and I don’t know whether it means anything at all,” Republican strategist Douglas Heye said. Charlie Black, a veteran Republican strategist, said it would likely blow over.
“It’s a wild thing but nobody will remember it next week,” Black said, adding Trump “did the right thing.”
The Pentagon sought to downplay the first major public split between Trump and Hegseth, saying the two spoke before the US president posted his decision on Truth Social.
“The Secretary supports the President’s decision, and they are completely aligned,” said Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson.
CONGRESSIONAL WORRIES
Trump regularly extols Hegseth publicly, and has given the former Army National Guard soldier significant leeway as he seeks to reshape the Pentagon, including by firing its most senior officers.
But after narrowly winning Senate confirmation, Hegseth has failed to win over many Republicans who voiced concerns over his qualifications for the job. Some Republican lawmakers and congressional aides have expressed worries over his expected plans to draw down forces in Europe.
One Republican lawmaker filed articles of impeachment against Hegseth last month, accusing him of abusing his office by executing an order for hostilities against Iran without approval by Congress.
While Representative Thomas Massie’s measure is not expected to succeed, Democrats could look to move forward with impeachment proceedings if they win control of the House in the upcoming elections in November.
At times, the conflict between Hegseth and members of Congress has become personal. Last year, Hegseth sought to prosecute Democratic Senator Mark Kelly after he and five other Democrats in Congress with backgrounds in the military and intelligence community urged US troops to refuse illegal orders.
Kelly on Thursday introduced a bill that would prohibit livestreamed executions.
“Livestreaming an execution is un-American and dangerous. It is the kind of thing we see with regimes like Iran and the Taliban in Afghanistan,” Kelly said in a statement.
The event would have been extraordinary, even for a country that has long employed capital punishment. A government execution has never been broadcast or livestreamed, according to death penalty experts, and the US military has not executed anyone by firing squad since 1945.
Hasan was convicted of premeditated murder for shooting dead 13 people and wounding 32 others in a medical facility at the vast Fort Hood base in 2009. Now 56, he requires a wheelchair, having been shot by police during his arrest.
Hegseth had argued that making the event public would help show “there’s serious consequences for these types of things.”
Trump appeared to accept Hegseth’s argument, saying on Thursday livestreaming it “might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan.”
But Trump, who is himself a former reality television star, ultimately decided a public show went too far.
“Many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device. He will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed,” Trump wrote.
(Reporting by Phil Stewart, additional reporting by Nandita Bose; editing by Paul Thomasch and Rosalba O’Brien)
