MEDIEVAL MADNESS

Senator Stunned as CNN Host Breaks Pete Hegseth Move to Him in Live Segment

Chris Murphy was blindsided by the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the Fort Hood shooter’s execution.

Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy appeared stunned as he heard news from CNN Host Erin Burnett of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s plan to turn the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan into a public spectacle.

The 53-year-old was on Thursday’s OutFront to talk about being barred from U.S. military bases in the Middle East. Murphy, who visited the region this week on a congressional delegation trip, told reporters Thursday that he was barred from Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest U.S. military installation in the region, which was damaged by drone strikes during the Iran war, according to Military Times.

Burnett then raised the Pentagon’s latest announcement: Nidal Hasan, an Army psychiatrist convicted of killing 13 people and injuring another 30 in 2009 at the Soldier Readiness Processing Center in Texas, will be executed by a military firing squad on Dec. 3. The execution, Hegseth revealed, will be livestreamed.

Hegseth made the announcement to right-wing commentator Jack Posobiec on conservative network Real America’s Voice.

“We’ll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it’s public, because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things.”

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Murphy was live on OutFront on Thursday when Burnett delivered the news.

“I actually hadn’t seen that video. That’s the first time that I’m learning that he’s going to televise it. I mean, that’s disgusting,” he said, appearing stunned.

“What is he mimicking? ISIS executions.”

“I understand that in this country we have the death penalty, but public executions is medieval,” he continued. “It’s frankly one of the things that we abhor about terrorist groups.”

According to The Washington Post, the plan came from Hegseth himself. Later on Thursday, the Pentagon made an official statement announcing it. President Donald Trump signed off on the firing squad earlier this week.

Burnett told the audience that it would be the first time in the U.S. since World War II that an Army firing squad had been used for an execution, adding that live-streaming it “for anybody to be able to watch it for themselves is unprecedented.”

Murphy looked shocked.

“Absolutely extraordinary,” he said. “Galling.”

The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon for comment.

Hasan served as a one-time Army psychiatrist. In 2009, he gunned down dozens of soldiers who were getting ready to be dispatched to Afghanistan. Officers shot him during the attack, leaving him partially paralyzed. He killed 13 people and injured 32 more, according to the Post. Representing himself at his court-martial in 2013, he was given the death penalty.

Based on a report by the nonprofit Death Penalty Information Center, which tracks capital punishment, his execution would be the first military execution in the U.S. in 65 years. The last one dates back to 1961, when Army Pvt. John A. Bennett was hanged for a conviction of rape and attempted murder.

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Briana CharlesReporter

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