Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) on Friday sharply criticized Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, calling him “a deeply unwell person” in response to the Pentagon’s plan to livestream the execution of convicted Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan next month.
“I think Pete Hegseth is, frankly … a deeply unwell person who seems to relish this kind of brutality,” Ossoff said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, according to a clip shared by the network.
The Pentagon announced Thursday that Hasan, a former Army major and psychiatrist who killed 13 people in a 2009 shooting rampage at Fort Hood, Texas, would be executed by firing squad on Dec. 3 at the same military base. The execution would be the military’s first in six decades, and the plan to broadcast it live immediately drew bipartisan condemnation.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) called the proposal “beyond disgusting,” writing on X that “public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”
Joe Kent, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Center who resigned in March over the Iran war, said streaming the execution would be “a stain on our morality” and would provide “free propaganda” for terrorists to radicalize and recruit.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said in a statement that Hegseth’s plan is “a gift to anti-American terrorist recruiters” and “absolutely shameful and damaging to America’s interests and core values.”
Hasan, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 2009 attack, is scheduled to be executed at 1 p.m. local time at Fort Hood, now known as Fort Cavazos. The last U.S. service member executed by firing squad was Pvt. Edward Donald Slovik, who was executed in 1945 for desertion. The military has carried out only one execution since then, the 1961 hanging of Pvt. John Bennett.
Hegseth defended the plan Thursday, invoking a World War II mentality. “I kind of like the mentality we had in WWII, which was win, understand that when the enemy attacks you, you stand your ground,” he said.
Ossoff accused Hegseth of “spending his time with this kind of obscene medieval spectacle” instead of managing the Pentagon, which he said is “falling into chaos.” He added that the administration’s “values are in disarray” and its foreign policy is “endangering the United States, squandering our international power and destroying our image in the world.”
The controversy comes amid broader scrutiny of Hegseth’s leadership, including his push for troop voting and his awarding of honors to carrier crews. Critics have also questioned his expansion of counter-narcotics operations in South America. Tillis, who voted to confirm Hegseth, later called that vote his career’s biggest mistake.
