UN says Pentagon plan to livestream execution of Fort Hood shooter would amount to torture – US politics live

More Republican lawmakers have criticized the Pentagon's plan to live stream the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan – the US army psychiatrist who was sentenced to death after he murdered 13 people at the Ford Hood army base in Texas in 2009.

Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, began his plea for defense secretary Pete Hegseth to reconsider broadcasting the execution by invoking Seneca – the ancient philosopher who warned that Rome's “bloody spectacles corrupted the people who watched themâ€.

“A civilization erodes when it cultivates an appetite for executions as a form of entertainment,†Curtis said in a post on X, cautioning that livesteaming the event “risks feeding the appetiteâ€.

He added: “The victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent.â€

Meanwhile, Rob Bresnahan – a GOP congressman who is facing a competitive re-election battle for his central Pennsylvania district in the upcoming midterms – said the execution “shouldn't be a live streamed spectacle†and the victims and their families' pain “deserves respect, not a public showâ€.

Katie Zacharia, a former spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, and current communications adviser for the Trump Media and Technology Group, has been offered the position of White House press secretary, a White House official confirms to the Guardian.

Zacharia would replace Karoline Leavitt, who left the role at the end of August after she gave birth to her second child. Leavitt took on a role with the Trump aligned Super Pac, Maga Inc, and this week was tapped as a new Fox News contributor.

The New York Times reported earlier that Zacharia had been chosen for the job, but the Guardian has not confirmed that she has accepted the role.

As we continue to bring you the news about the scheduled execution of Nidal Hasan – that is set to be livestreamed – my colleague Lucy Hough has spoken with capital punishment expert Austin Sarat, the author of Life After Death: Surviving Execution, for today's episode of Today in Focus: The Latest.

The Trump administration today announced a set of new sanctions on the international criminal court, a global court which investigates and prosecutes individuals accused of atrocities and other crimes against humanity.

“America never joined the court. We don't need that court, and we don't want it,†said secretary of state Marco Rubio in a video on Friday. “They want to prosecute border patrol agents that are protecting our nation's borders, and they want to prosecute our elected leaders that are ensuring our national security … President Trump will never allow the international criminal court to prosecute Americans.â€

The new sanctions target the court as an institution, blocking any ICC assets in the US and giving US companies and individuals six months to wind down any business with the court.

“Either the ICC will end its threats, or we will end the ICC. And we expect our allies, many of whom are part of the ICC and that rely on American service members for their defense, to rein in this rogue court,†Rubio added.

In a statement, the ICC said the sanctions are an “assault on the rule of law and on the very foundations of the international legal orderâ€.

The administration's announcement today comes after Navi Pillay, a former ICC judge, won the Nobel Peace prize – an award that Donald Trump has long-coveted.

Pillay, who currently serves as a judge at the international court of justice (ICJ), chaired the UN commission that concluded Israel was guilty of genocide in Gaza.

She joked with reporters on Friday that “if you clap a little bit more, I'm going to share this prize with Trump.†Last year's winner, María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader, drew criticism for handing her medal to Trump. However, the Nobel committee acknowledged that the honor could not be transferred.

A reminder that in 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant, for alleged war crimes. A move that the Trump administration has repeatedly condemned.

Last year, Donald Trump imposed personal sanctions against ICC officials deemed to be involved in investigations of Americans or Israelis.

At the White House today, Donald Trump mentioned the upcoming execution of Nidal Hasan.

“Today you can do almost anything. Nothing happens,†Trump said. “But we're changing that … in fact, we're giving a man the death penalty who killed 14 soldiers a couple of years ago.â€

Hasan – a former the US army psychiatrist – actually shot and killed 13 people, 12 of whom were soldiers, at the Fort Hood base in 2009.

Trump, however, did not comment on the Pentagon's decision to livestream the execution – which is set to be the US's first by firing squad since 1945, as well as the first military execution since 1961 and the first ever to be broadcast for people to watch online.

Jack Reed, the Senate armed services committee ranking member, has also condemned the Pentagon's decision to livestream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

On Friday, Reed called the decision “a barbaric spectacleâ€, adding: “This is yet another stunt by Secretary Hegseth to distract from his tenure's repeated failings which have only weakened our national security and standing in the world.â€

Reed called on the Donald Trump administration to “reconsider this abhorrent move†and said that a livestream would be a “gift to anti-American terrorist recruitersâ€.

A survivor of the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting said that he supports the execution of the gunman but was concerned about the Pentagon's decision to livestream it.

Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Alonzo Lunsford, a former US army sergeant who was shot seven times at the military base in Texas, said: “To show the whole thing without it being censored for the general public, for me personally, I don't agree with that, but it's not about my personal belief.â€

He added that it was “not something you should view for entertainment purposesâ€.

Lunsford's comments come after defense secretary Pete Hegseth announced on Thursday that the execution of US army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan by firing squad will be a public event.

The UN has condemned the Pentagon's decision, saying that the live stream of an execution “is tantamount to a public execution and would breach the absolute prohibition of tortureâ€.

Donald Trump has set up a committee to investigate Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook as part of his latest efforts to fire her.

The “committee of inquiry†will investigate “false statements in connection with one or more mortgage instruments†that the White House says Cook made.

“As president, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law,†Trump said in a statement.

This latest move by Trump comes just months after the supreme court ruled that Cook, a Joe Biden appointee, was entitled to remain as Fed governor as she fights Trump's unproved allegations against her.

Last August, Trump fired Cook on social media, accusing her of mortgage fraud, which involves misrepresenting a property as a primary residence to secure better loan terms. Cook denied the allegations and sued the administration, arguing she was fired without cause.

Trump's establishment of a committee to investigate Cook also comes just days after the Federal Reserve's inspector general found that there was no basis for the justice department to reopen its criminal investigation into the central bank's renovations in Washington DC.

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At a press conference today, Markwayne Mullin – the Department of Homeland Security secretary – addressed the shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent of a man in the Marble Hill neighborhood of the Bronx, New York during an enforcement operation on Thursday.

The man was conscious and hospitalized, authorities said, but the shooting quickly sparked angry protests from local residents and elected officials.

Officials on Friday identified the man as Oscar Belgal, who they said was the subject of an ongoing DHS investigation and was allegedly involved in the shooting of border patrol officer two years ago. On Thursday federal immigration agents attempted to arrest Belgal, officials said, but he allegedly refused orders to exit his vehicle, before accelerating toward the officers who fired shots that struck Belgal “superficially in the neckâ€. After he stopped his vehicle officers administered first aid and took him to the hospital, an Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) director.

Early reports indicated that there was a five-year-old child in Belgal's car, in the residential area where agents fired multiple rounds, according to the city's mayor, Zohran Mamdani. The child was physically unharmed, he said.

Later at a press conference, Mamdani demanded from the Trump ‌administration that ICE stop its enforcement actions in New York City. “ICE is rotten to its core,†he said.

Today, however, Mullin said that agents weren't aware there was a child in the car, but placed blame on Belgal. “He knew he had a child in his car,†Mullin said. “That outrage should be with him for endangering the five-year-old.â€

He added that body cameras were worn by the ICE agents, and officials will release more information as the investigation moves forward.

Speaking today, Mullin also slammed the mayor's comments, adding that his words were “dangerous and incite hostilityâ€.

The homeland security secretary said that he spoke to the Mamdani several times on Thursday night, and said they mayor wanted official to release Belgal.

“President Trump actually got involved and said that we would release him to New York's finest,†Mullin said. “If you abolish ICE, who's going to take the criminals off the streets of your own town?â€

Broadcasting an execution could cause post-traumatic stress disorder in the viewing public, mental health experts have said after Hegseth's announcement that the firing squad execution of Nidal Hasan – the former US army psychiatrist who killed 13 people at Fort Hood – would be livestreamed.

Dr Simon Duff, a forensic psychologist at the University of Nottingham in the UK, said that while there was not a lot of research into the impact of watching an execution, studies examining journalists' experiences of witnessing violence suggested evidence of trauma response.

“Certainly if people are not resilient they probably shouldn't [watch], but if they have some underlying psychological driver towards viewing an execution they will likely do so regardless of the potential for harm,†Duff said.

“Recent events suggest that executions do not always go to plan,†he said, referring to the failed execution by lethal injection of Christa Pike in the US. “That possibility needs to be acknowledged, and the likelihood that this would increase the trauma for viewers.â€

Neil Greenberg, a professor of defence mental health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience at King's College London, said trigger warnings did not routinely lead to people avoiding media they may find distressing.

“Instead they are likely to suffer anticipatory anxiety before the ‘trauma' is shown and some people will then become distressed,†he said.

“It is likely that people who have pre-existing mental health problems will be especially at risk of becoming distressed or experiencing a deterioration in their mental health.

“My advice would be not to watch the event at all and I would hope that mainstream media would not transmit highly traumatic images [or] sounds,†Greenberg said.

Public executions were once common around the world, including in the UK, but only two out of 17 countries that carried out executions last year did so publicly.