The Pentagon announced on Thursday that it will broadcast live the military's first firing squad execution in decades, allowing the public to witness the execution of the man responsible for the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting that claimed 13 lives.

In an interview last week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to allow the public to witness Nidal Hasan's execution by firing squad at the same Texas facility where he committed the atrocity.

In an interview with far-right podcaster Jack Posobiec on the USS Abraham Lincoln on Wednesday, Hegseth stated, "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public, because people need to understand that there are serious consequences for these types of things."

The execution, which Hegseth suggested and President Donald Trump approved, "will be livestreamed," according to a Pentagon official on Thursday. Hegseth confirmed this in a post on X.

Hasan's execution was scheduled for December 3 at 1 p.m. local time by Acting Secretary of the Army Adam Telle.

"We're going to do it at one o'clock, which is when he did it, and it's going to be soldiers with rifles executing the firing squad," Hegseth declared.

The Army was contacted by the Pentagon earlier on Thursday regarding how the execution would be made public, but they did not reply to CNN.

In July 2013, Hasan was found guilty of 32 charges of attempted murder and 13 counts of premeditated murder. He informed the 13-member panel during his trial that he was going for soldiers who "were going to engage in an illegal war" and would deploy to Afghanistan. He began fire on soldiers at Fort Hood's medical processing facility on the day of the incident in order to obtain medical examinations before to their deployment.  Following the soldiers as they left through the processing center's back door, Hasan was intercepted by police, with whom he exchanged gunfire before being hit.

The firing squad execution would be the US Army's first of its kind since World War II. In the interview, Hegseth expressed his admiration for "the mentality we had in World War II, which was win." which was to realize that you need defend yourself when the opponent assaults.

Bipartisan denunciation and possible infraction of Army rules

Both sides of the political spectrum have denounced Hegseth's promise to allow the public to witness the firing squad execution.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican, described it as "beyond disgusting" late on Thursday. "Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do," he stated on X. America shouldn't be experiencing this.

Stunned, Democratic Senator Chris Murphy told CNN's Erin Burnett that public executions are "medieval."

"Is he imitating ISIS executions? That's disgusting." Murphy remarked. Is that how America has evolved? That is quite remarkable.

The Army's rules pertaining to military capital punishment might be broken by a public broadcast of Hasan's execution. Army Regulation 190-55 prohibits minors from witnessing the penalty and stipulates who is allowed to witness a military execution. However, as long as the waiver does not contravene the law or a higher legal rule, the Army's provost marshal general, a general in charge of military law enforcement, is allowed to waive some elements of the regulation.