Tangle - The planned execution of the Fort Hood shooter.

Episode Date: October 13, 2026

On Thursday, the Defense Department announced that it intends to livestream the execution of the former Army major who carried out the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting. The convicted shooter is scheduled to be executed by an Army firing squad on December 3, which would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961 and the first known execution by firing squad since 1945. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have pushed back on the plan to livestream the event, and President Donald Trump said he is still considering the proposal.Ad-free podcasts are here!Get 20% off your first year of ad-free episodes, exclusive interviews, and deep dives with Tangle’s podcast membership!A candid look at Hasan Piker.Hasan Piker has gained national prominence with his no-holds-barred political commentary and growing influence on the left. On Friday, Executive Editor Isaac Saul explored the streamer’s controversial statements, provocative worldview, and role in the Democratic Party’s future. You can read it here. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠ and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here.Take the survey: Should the public be able to view executions? Let us know.Our Executive Editor and Founder is Isaac Saul. Our Executive Producer is Jon Lall.This podcast written by: Audrey Moorehead and audio engineered and edited by Dewey Thomas. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75.Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Senior Editor Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Audrey Moorehead, and Carina Pacheco. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place where you get news from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of our take. This is editor Audrey Moorhead, and on this fine Tuesday morning, I am recording from the Rolling Hills of Middle Tennessee, where it's going to get up to a crisp 86 degrees Fahrenheit later today. I don't know about you, but I think that sounds like that. just like fall. Just a week after we covered the failed execution of Krista Pike, today's podcast is going to discuss the plans to live stream the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, an issue that throws my political and moral convictions into sharp relief.

Then you'll hear a feel-good story on a rescued baby bird. But before we get into it, we have a correction to make on last Friday's podcast. In Friday's podcast, we incorrectly identified Dave Wasserman as a pollster. While Wasserman frequently discusses polling, he does not conduct. duct polls himself, and professionally he's known as an election analyst. That said, Friday's podcast is still an excellent and interesting dive into Hassan Piker, a speaker who's gained national prominence with his no-holds-barred political commentary and his growing influence on the left. Last Friday, executive editor Isaac Saul explored the streamer's

controversial statements, provocative worldview, and role in the Democratic Party's future. I definitely recommend checking it out, so after you finish listening to Today's podcast, head over there if you haven't. Now, I'll pass things off to Will for the quick hits. Thanks, Audrey. All right, let's get into today's quick hits. Number one, Homeland Security Investigations agents rated the home of Representative Ilhan Omar,

a Democrat from Minnesota, reportedly as part of an investigation into Omar's immigration paperwork. Number two, new White House press secretary, Katie Zachariah, said the Trump administration has asked U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle, to resign amid allegations that she offered access to the administration

in return for payments toward credit card debt. Number three, President Donald Trump announced the deal for the United States to buy over four million tons of diesel oil from Russia. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky called the agreement a, quote, gift to Putin. Separately, on Monday, Zelensky accused Russia of striking at least six Ukrainian energy targets in violation of a purported energy ceasefire announced by President Trump. Number four, a Justice Department spokesperson

said the department is investigating whether major news outlets violated antitrust law when they stopped press pool coverage of President Trump last month following his decision to ban MS Now Politico and CNN from the White House. And number five, Houthi rebels struck Riyadh's International Airport in Saudi Arabia on Saturday, killing 13 and injuring over 300.

On Sunday, another hoothy strike at the airport killed one person and injured 11. Well, President Donald Trump says that he will have the final say over whether a military execution here in Texas will be made public. Now, the Pentagon is currently planning to live stream the death by firing squad of Fort Hood soldier Nadal Hassan. It's set to take place December 3rd at the same military base, Fort Hood, where he killed 13 people back in 2009. sources tell CBS news some army leaders were initially caught off guard by the announcement from Defense Secretary Pete Hagseth last week when he said that execution would be made public. It's also not clear if social media companies would even allow government accounts to stream Hassan's death. Over the weekend, President Trump said plans could very well change.

On Thursday, the Defense Department announced that it intends to live stream the execution of the former Army major who carried out the 2009-4. Court Hood mass shooting. The convicted shooter is scheduled to be executed by an army firing squad on December 3rd, which would be the first U.S. military execution since 1961 and the first known execution by firing squad since 1945. Republican and Democratic lawmakers have pushed back on the plan to live stream the event, and President Donald Trump has said he has not decided whether to approve the proposal. For context, on November 5th, 2009, an army major and psychiatrist opened fire at Fort Hood in Texas, killing 13 people and injuring 32 others. The shooter was paralyzed from the waist down by return fire.

He said that he carried out the attack because the U.S. military is at war with Islam, calling the United States, quote, a government that openly acknowledges that it would hate for the law of Almighty Allah to be the supreme law of the land. end quote. He was convicted on all charges in 2013 and sentenced to death. And a quick editor's note here, due to the well-documented contagion effect, Tangle does not name shooters or suspects in high-profile attacks. So you'll hear us refer to the man at the center of the story as the shooter today. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backed the plan to live stream the execution, saying,

quote, 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, end quote. He also noted that it will be the first military execution by firing squad since 1945. Broadcasted executions of inmates in the federal prison system are outlawed, but the military has not explicitly barred the practice. On Friday, Vice President J.D. Vance suggested that the live stream plan may not go ahead, adding that he will not watch it if it does.

separately, President Trump initially told reporters that he had approved the plan, but later said he was still deciding, saying, quote, there are two thoughts, don't show it and show it, because, you know, by showing it, maybe other people won't be doing what he did, end quote. Some Republicans have criticized the plan, including Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, who said, quote, it would give this individual who deserves no further notoriety the martyrdom he seeks, end quote. Senator John Curtis, a Republican from Utah, posted on X, quote, the victims deserve justice administered with solemnity. Broadcasting a death diminishes us and is not an effective deterrent, end quote. Many Democrats also spoke out against the proposal with Senator Jack Reed, a Democrat from Rhode Island, calling it, quote, a barbaric spectacle.

Today we'll share views from the left and the right on the planned public execution, followed by editor Audrey Moorhead's take. We'll be right back after this quick break. Here's what the left is saying. The left opposes the proposed public execution, with some saying it would be psychologically harmful to the public. Many suggest the live stream would be a moral affront. Others worry that the Supreme Court's current jurisprudence

would allow the firing squad execution. In the Atlantic, Graham Wood wrote about the real harm of a public execution. This man deserves what he says, he is probably going to get in December. The rest of us, however, will be ill-served by the spectacle of his execution. Watching people die by violence, even if those people have it coming, damages the spectator irreversibly. I don't mean physical or emotional damage. I mean something more like the loss of their humanity and dignity through partaking in the process of treating a person like a machine to be turned off. It is hard to appreciate how awful this viewing experience

will be until you have it. And then, of course, it will be too late. I've seen videotaped executions and been diminished by every single one. In this world, denying the shooter the pleasure of death on his own terms and letting him instead spend a few more earthly decades in tedious incarceration would seem a much more onerous punishment. In the hill, Jocelyn Joseph argued that live streaming the execution would be replacing our own moral compass. I have no problem with this man being executed and fully support calling him a terrorist. What he did was abhorrent, and his justification of using his religion as an excuse doesn't hold water to many, Muslim or otherwise. But live streaming and execution is yet another way we have caved in and given up our

values because of our fears. We have othered Muslims so badly and vilified them to the point that we are now acting the way we accuse them of acting. We abhor terror groups like the Islamic State organization when they release high production snuff films showing prisoners beheaded, shot, run over by tanks, blown up with grenades, or butcher like livestock. We criticize the Saudis for public executions and call them barbaric. People flee autocratic Muslim countries because of public executions and come here because we don't yet act that way. In his substack, Steve Vladick suggested that legal challenges to the execution would face a significant obstacle. In a world in which the legality of such a public spectacle ends up in court, and I'm very

skeptical that it will, Heggseth's proposal is an unusually accessible illustration of the very real consequences of the shift in the Supreme Court's Eighth Amendment jurisprudence since 2019. Ever since Justice Kennedy retired, the court has embraced a more static, 1791-oriented conception of which punishments are and aren't constitutional. For decades, the court recognized that because the language of the cruel and unusual punishments clause is dynamic, the clause, quote, must draw its meaning from the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society, end quote. The biggest gap between the court's, quote, evolving standards jurisprudence and its current approach involves punishments that were in broad use at the founding, but have since been largely repudiated.

and the public execution of the shooter would fall right into that space. Now here's what the right is saying. The right is mixed with some saying executions should be public. Others worried that public execution would make a martyr out of the shooter. Still others argue that firing squads are the preferable manner of execution. In the Daily Wire, Andrew T. Walker argued execution demands a public witness. public outcry that reduces public execution to a, quote, spectacle, vastly undervalues the magnitude of the shooter's offense. It is true that concerns about the macabre, bloodlust, and pruriance are real.

No one should derive joy or entertainment from watching another human die, even if the conditions are just. Our society is no more morally enlightened than biblical times where execution was public, and done so that, quote, all Israel shall hear and fear, and never again do any such wickedness as this among you, Deuteronomy 1311. In other words, deterrence. I believe capital punishment should be public. The military serves the nation's defense, not a single state,

and thus citizens across the country have a right, but not an obligation, to view the execution if they choose. The shooter's terrorism was a symbolic act against the citizens of the United States. The New York Post editorial board said, don't make the execution a public spectacle. America is supposed to be a model nation with the highest values, a shining light that leads the world into a civilized future.

The spectacle of a publicized, glamorized execution sends us in the opposite direction. The death is meant to achieve justice for the horrific evil he perpetrated, not serve as a source of entertainment or pleasure for the masses. That's not what America represents. nor will a public execution deter terror. It'll only make a martyr out of the shooter. It's precisely what monsters like him long for,

martyrdom that brings fame and glory. Jihadis will surely use footage of the execution as a recurring tool. Rather than tame terrorism, it'll only inflame it. For the sake of upholding America's moral stature and decency itself, Trump must put an end to this abominable idea. In the Wall Street Journal, Alex Kaczynski made the case for firing squads. Perhaps states thought lethal injection would fare better in court because it resembled a familiar medical procedure. Perhaps they wanted executions to look less medieval.

Either way, the appeal was obvious. Put the prisoner on a gurney, attach tubes, administer drugs, and invite the public to imagine that death arrives cleanly and quickly without anyone getting blood on his hands. appearances, however, aren't reality. Execution by lethal injection is dishonest. It dresses an execution in the reassuring garb of medicine, encouraging us to mistake a state killing for a clinical event. Medicine seeks to preserve life.

Execution ends it. This blurring of what are diametrically opposite functions is epistemologically perilous and morally repugnant. I have some doubts over whether live-streaming the execution is advisable, but Mr. Hexeth should be commended for his honesty. That's it for what the left and the right are saying. So now I'm going to pass it over to Audrey for her take. Audrey, to you.

Thanks, Will. I'm back with my take. If you asked me to name the most important political value I hold, my answer would be simple. I am pro-life in nearly every meaning of the term. It seems clear to me that the single most important goal of society should be the preservation and perpetuation of human life. Life is precious from the moment it begins until the moment it ends. To end a life prematurely

is the single gravest thing that a person can do. To kill another person is to rob them of the most precious gift they have ever been given, to freeze them in place permanently, to remove their chance of experiencing further joy or bringing further joy into the world.

One of the first stories in the Bible is the first murder for a reason. In short, if you're going to kill someone, you need to have an unimpeachable, reason to do so. Given all this, as a Christian, I grapple with capital punishment more than I grapple with any other political issue. Christian views on the death penalty are diverse and complicated, as our coverage of the failed execution of Krista Pike last week showcased. The Catholic Church, the largest Christian body in the world, officially opposes it. Pope Leo the 14th distilled the

church's opinion on it in a social media post last weekend, writing, quote, The death penalty is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person. The common good can be safeguarded and the requirements of justice can be met without recourse to capital punishment. Effective systems of detention have been developed that protect citizens while at the same time do not completely deprive those who are guilty of the possibility of redemption. I'm not a Catholic, but I still recognize the Pope's formidable role in interpreting Christian moral teachings. And his emphasis that redemption is possible for any person, myself and included, hits home for me. Even so, I can't shake the feeling that the death penalty is permissible for the most serious of crimes, and that the potential abandonment of capital punishment,

indeed our abandonment of older understandings of justice, could be detrimental to us. Amid a debate over capital punishment just after World War II, the writer C.S. Lewis argued that to abandon the retributive theory of punishment, to instead prioritize theories of rehabilitation and deterrence, is to dehumanize the criminal and give concession to tyranny. If we pathologize all of a person's wrongdoings, we imply that the person lacks the capacity for reason. If we solely focus on deterrence, we open ourselves to justifying the punishment of innocence just to set an example. For those reasons, Lewis argued, society can't abandon the concept of giving a criminal his just desserts. If we accept that premise, then we must ask what sorts

of desserts are required by different crimes. Here, Lewis argues, we should rely on the principles of justice developed over centuries of legal theory and the judgments of juries of juries of a convict's peers. Capital punishment has been a part of this legal system since time immemorial. Our ancestors understood it to be necessary to some extent, and they further understood it to be a just desert for certain crimes. Of course, just because the death penalty was once understood to be necessary does not mean that its proponents were right then or that they are right now. After all, governments have killed and still kill people for crimes that we recognize today as unworthy of the death penalty. And I think that getting the death penalty wrong, by applying it erroneously or

or incompetently, is the most egregious act a government can commit. Not only that, but the state making the final decision to deprive any person of the chance of redemption genuinely makes my blood run cold. Nevertheless, I still find myself thinking that death is the only appropriate punishment for some crimes, mass shootings among them. The Fort Hood shooter killed 13 people and injured 32 more, all in the name of fighting America on behalf of radical Islam. In the years since the massacre, the shooter has expressed no remorse, and has in fact

continued to hold fast to the extremist ideology that drove him to murder. I believe this man must choose redemption if he's to have it, but he has spent nearly two decades refusing it and doubling down at every turn. Execution in the end fits the bill of just desserts for his crimes. In this case, the biggest miscarriage of justice is the fact that he has sat on death row for well over a decade. But my support for the death penalty, even in the case of the Fort Hood shooter, is contingent on an important factor. It must be carried out with the solemnity and sobriety that such a punishment requires. We mustn't take pleasure in ending another person's life.

Instead, we must treat it as a terrible duty, and we must afford the convicted every dignity we can for our own consciences, if not for his comfort. So for that reason, when I heard the Pentagon declare that the execution, by firing squad no less, would be live-streamed, I was filled with anger. I understand the case for public executions. Part of the solemnity of execution

includes our understanding of the gravity of what we're doing, and I think that modern medicalized executions intentionally obscure and desensitize the public to the gruesome finality of the act. But there's a difference between displaying an execution with dignity and treating it as a show of force or a spectacle. When the enactment of justice becomes a spectacle, people begin to lose their sense of justice,

giving way to cravings for revenge fueled by an incendiary mob mentality, and in my view, offering it on live stream worsens this problem. viewing violence through a screen evokes even more desensitization. You're a move from the full embodied experience, making it feel unreal like playing a video game or watching a movie. Easy access to that sort of violent imagery has been found to inspire radicalization and even terrorism. It's the very reason that the Islamic State, the group that this shooter pledges loyalty to,

publicizes its killings. And the live-streamed execution of a paraplegic Islamic terrorist would do their work for them, turning the convict into a martyr and providing evidence, of America's brutality. Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth seems either unaware of were apathetic toward these problems. Neither attitude would surprise me. The secretary likes to flaunt Scripture

when he thinks it emphasizes strength and bravado, but he's just as likely to flout its demands for dignity and grace. And that misuse of scripture, in service of such an egregious betrayal of dignity, carried out by a civil servant in a secular government, no less, makes a mockery of the idea of justice.

My hope is that the better angels and President Trump's and Vice President Vance's natures prevail here, and that they shoot down Hegset's ill-formed idea. Because if they don't, in my view, it would be better to have no death penalty at all than to have it so abused. That's it for my take. Now I'll pass it off to Executive Editor Isaac Saul for a staff concurrence.

All right, thanks, Audrey. This is Isaac Saul, Executive Editor. Audrey and I disagree about the utility of the death penalty. I've written in stark opposition to it, including as recently as last week. But I was relieved to see we landed in the same place on the value of a public execution. While I'm almost compelled by the argument

that we should have public executions to make the country reckon with what we're allowing behind closed doors, I'm conscious of the fact that, as Audrey argued, violence begets violence, to say nothing of the fact that this particular killer wants to die a martyr. And turning it into a nationwide watch party

feels like I'm stuck in an episode of Black Mirror. In the surfeit of hypocrisy and violence, this is the same administration that has an HHS campaign bringing together researchers, tech companies, and advocates for a symposium on screen-related harms. Now, it's guaranteeing a government-sponsored killing goes viral on the internet,

inevitably making its way to devices across the world. If it weren't so nauseating to imagine teenagers firing up the lives, stream from their phones and computers across the country, it'd be comically absurd to consider, which, honestly, is a good way to describe Pete Hegstaff's entire term as Secretary of Defense. All right, that's it for my concurrence back to Will Kayback for the rest of the pod. We'll be right back after this quick break. Thanks, Isaac.

All right, here is our Have a Nice Day story. A British fisherman called the Waterfowulfs. sanctuary after his fishing line hooked and entangled a young swan that took his bait. He waded into the water with hopes of freeing the swan, but decided to retreat from the possibility of parental attacks. So he called the sanctuary, and rescuer Graham Porter was on site within 30 minutes, kayaking out to the swan family. After navigating in advance by the flapping wings of a protective parent, Porter scooped up the bird, paddled away from the parents, and found a patch of daylight to focus on the entanglement.

He untangled the fishing line and detached the hook from the bill, freeing the baby to return to its parents. Good, good, good has this story, and we'll drop a link to it in today's show notes. That's it for today's edition. Thanks as always for being with us. We'll be back tomorrow, Wednesday,

with another edition. Hope you have a great day. And until we talk again, peace. Our executive editor and founder is me, Isaac Saul, and our executive producer is John Lull. Today's episode was edited and engineered by Dewey Thomas.

Our editorial staff is led by managing editor Ari Weitzman with senior editor Will Kayback and associate editors, Audrey Moorhead, Bailey Saul. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. To learn more about Tangle and to sign up for a membership, please visit our website at reetangle.com.