Michael Steele says Americans ‘turned the hand’ of Trump on execution livestream

MS NOW host Michael Steele says public pressure forced President Donald Trump to drop plans to broadcast the execution of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter. Pentagon officials had said the previous week that the firing squad death would be livestreamed. On Thursday, Trump announced on Truth Social that the sentence would proceed on schedule but without any stream.

Steele argued that the reversal showed citizens checking their government. He said the American people "turned the hand" of the president, and he expressed gratitude that viewers had refused to go along. Even with the broadcast canceled, he said, the fact that officials weighed it raises serious questions about national character, and he called the idea voyeuristic and dehumanizing regardless of one's view of capital punishment.

Hasan had been found guilty in the 2009 deaths of 13 people at a military medical facility. Steele noted that some relatives of the victims had voiced unease with the proposal, saying they already endure the loss of their loved ones and should not have to face something resembling reality television. He framed the outcome as a lesson in how accountability works: the public decided, and it responded.

Summarized by PolitiKool from MS NOW’s reporting. Read the full story at MS NOW →