Trump cancels the livestream

That plan did not survive the week. On Thursday, Trump announced he was cancelling the livestream, saying that "many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die".

Wilson and CREC pastors back public executions

The plan had drawn support from Douglas Wilson, the Idaho pastor who co-founded and is de facto leader of Hegseth's Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC). Wilson welcomed the announcement. He told Religion News last Friday that he prefers "public executions to those conducted in the recesses of a prison somewhere in the middle of the night", adding that "executions in the scriptures were public".

Speaking to the Guardian, Wilson said he supports Hasan's execution and prefers public executions to private, favoring "the older forms, like a firing squad", citing a botched execution by injection in Tennessee. He acknowledged practical dangers, writing that "the Pentagon has the responsibility to head off ghoulish behavior by some means", while admitting that "that will be challenging with a live stream". He also noted that he had not spoken to Hegseth or anyone in his department about the issue.

Wilson's position fits a longer pattern. CREC pastors, whose Washington DC church Hegseth attends, have for years advocated the death penalty for many perceived moral infractions including adultery, abortion and homosexuality. In a 2 March blog post headed "A Proposal", Wilson wrote: "The death penalty should be applied to violent criminals – murderers (Ex. 21:12), rapists and kidnappers (Ex. 21:16), abortionists (Ex. 21:22), and so on."

Julie Ingersoll, professor of philosophy and religion at the University of North Florida and author of Building God's Kingdom, said there was a consensus among early Christian reconstructionists that the death penalty for certain crimes should be public. "I do think this is where Hegseth is getting this and, no, Wilson isn't saying anything new," she said.

Allies go further; critics and historians weigh in

Other figures around Hegseth's circles have pushed the idea further, and opponents have condemned it:

• Joshua Haymes, who hosts the Reformation Red Pill podcast - on which Hegseth has appeared - and was a pastoral intern at Hegseth's former church in Tennessee, proposed "death by a public firing squad wherein the accuser and witnesses partake in the firing", according to reporting in August 2025.
• In a 28 March podcast episode, Haymes said of pornography producers: "Hang them in the streets. And I mean that. We need to bring back public executions."
• In an episode uploaded last week, Haymes claimed that if public executions were reinstituted, killings in what he called high-density Black areas of major cities would "fall to the floor".
• Haymes said in an email that he supports Hasan's execution and believes child pornographers should be executed, but "would stop short of capital punishment" for other pornographers.
• Haymes has also written that "over 50% of homicides in America are committed by around 6% of the population", blaming a small subset of black Americans who continually reoffend.
• The Anti-Defamation League lists similar claims in its hate symbols database as "13/52" and "13/90", describing them as racist propaganda claims by white supremacists.

Haymes has rejected the label. In prior emailed comment he said: "I am not a white nationalist or white supremacist. My cousin is black, and my brother-in-law is Chinese, and I'm glad they're here." He had also endorsed the views of white nationalist ideologue Jared Taylor of American Renaissance in a post on X, according to August 2025 reporting; Taylor has long denied being a white supremacist, describing himself as a "race realist" or "white advocate".

Ben Zornes, a pastor at Living Stones Reformed church, planted by Christ Church Moscow, is another supporter of the execution who has reservations about the broadcast. In 2018 he wrote that rebellious sons and unchaste daughters "were to be executed for the sake of the purity of the whole congregation".

On Hasan, Zornes said he backs the execution but has concerns about making it a public spectacle, saying public executions suit sober and mature societies and that "ours is like a toddler". He added that livestreaming would compromise the gravity of the event, and that he agreed with Wilson's preference for public over private executions.

Religious leaders opposed the plan outright. Pope Leo and the archbishop to the US military, Timothy Broglio, have both condemned Hegseth's plans.

Historians point to why public executions disappeared in the first place. Michael Trotti, professor of history at Ithaca College and author of The End of Public Execution, said northern executions moved inside prisons from the mid-19th century because of "growing middle-class discomfort with the spectacles of death".

Southern authorities, Trotti said, eventually concluded the events were giving too much prominent, public authority to black condemned prisoners and their pastors before massive mixed-race crowds. Public execution, he said, "ended up being somewhat out of the control of any authority trying to enact it", serving both conservative and radical purposes.

Trump's Thursday announcement ends the livestream plan. Toby Sumpter, David Shannon and Brooks Potteiger - CREC figures in the same orbit - did not respond to requests for comment.