President Trump held a rally in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Saturday amid reports of a planned public execution. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced a firing squad will execute Nidal Malik Hasan on Dec. 3. Attendee Ron Pool said, "I'll probably watch it on some livestream or something," reflecting mixed local views.
President Trump's midterm rally tour through the reddest of red states -- Alabama, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas -- continued Saturday afternoon with a stop in Tennessee. Mr. Trump spoke in the charming, colonial town of Clarksville, a few miles from the Kentucky border.
The people who turned up to see him all seemed to have heard that the Trump administration planned to hold the first legally sanctioned public execution in this country since 1936.
On Dec. 3, a firing squad is scheduled to execute Nidal Malik Hasan, an Army psychiatrist who gunned down 13 of his fellow soldiers, and injured 32 others, while shouting "Allahu akbar," at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced this week that Mr. Hasan's execution would be livestreamed. More than a few Republican lawmakers objected, and Vice President JD Vance said he wouldn't watch it. The president said on Friday that he "absolutely" approved the plan, though he suggested to reporters on Saturday morning that he still had "a decision" to make on whether to "show it."
Mr. Trump didn't talk about any of this at his rally in Clarksville, despite holding forth for more than an hour.
Some people shifted uncomfortably in their seats when asked about it. A few said they loved the idea, while others said they wouldn't watch. But in conversations with 10 people at the rally, no one said they opposed Mr. Trump's and Mr. Hegseth's plan.
"I'll probably watch it on some livestream or something," said Ron Pool, a 57-year-old man from Indian Mound, Tenn., who said he does not work because he is disabled.
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