Thom Tillis Tells Bill Maher Livestreamed Fort Hood Execution Is 'Performative'

Retiring Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina said Friday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's plan to livestream the firing-squad execution of Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan is "performative at the worst level and it has to be reversed."

Tillis made the remarks on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, a day after the Pentagon confirmed that the Dec. 3 execution would be streamed. Tillis, who is not seeking reelection, objected to making the execution public.

Thom Tillis Breaks With Pete Hegseth Over Livestream

Maher introduced the senator by saying "you've been quite a maverick lately" and asked whether his objection was to the execution or to the audience. Tillis said "this is bullshit there's no way we should be doing that."

"You could argue back and forth about the death penalty but this is not who we are," Tillis said.

He said the spectacle would endanger U.S. forces. Addressing Hegseth, he said: "you are putting our special operators at risk you are putting Americans at risk and you are building a recruiting video for more people."

"This is not the warrior ethos that the American people expect," Tillis added, calling the plan "a bad decision."

Maher briefly played devil's advocate, laying out the administration's likely argument: "if you want to impress these kind of people you have to be as brutal as they are."

Sara Eisen, co-anchor of CNBC's Squawk on the Street, sided with Tillis. She said a livestream is "also what our enemies do" and recalled her journalism school classmate James Foley, the American reporter kidnapped in Syria in 2012 and killed by ISIS in 2014. The group released a video of his beheading. "I think no one should have to watch these," Eisen said.

What the Pentagon Has Announced

Hegseth told Real America's Voice on Thursday that the execution would be open to the public. "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public. Because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things," he said. Pentagon officials confirmed on Thursday that the execution would be livestreamed, on a platform still to be announced.

The execution is set for 1 p.m. Dec. 3 at Fort Hood. President Donald Trump approved Hegseth's recommendation of a firing squad, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, NBC News reported. Asked about any last requests from Hasan, Hegseth said, "Don't care."

The United Nations human rights office condemned the plan, saying a livestreamed execution "is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of torture."

The Nidal Hasan Case and the Military Death Penalty

Hasan, a former Army psychiatrist, killed 13 people and wounded 32 at Fort Hood on Nov. 5, 2009. A court-martial convicted him of premeditated murder in 2013 and sentenced him to death.

The military has not executed anyone since April 13, 1961, when Army Private John A. Bennett was hanged, according to the Death Penalty Information Center. Under military law, no service member can be executed unless the president personally confirms the sentence.

If carried out, Hasan's death would be the first military execution by firing squad since World War II. No execution in the U.S. has ever been televised, and the country's last public execution took place in Kentucky in 1936.

What Happens Next

The Pentagon has said more details on the livestream will follow. Tillis, who is retiring from the Senate, presented his objection on the show as a demand to scrap the plan, not adjust it. "We've got to stop that," he told Maher.

He did not say whether he would push the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he sits, to act.