On Thursday, Donald Trump called off the Pentagon’s highly controversial plans to livestream a firing squad execution that is still on schedule for December 3.

Trump supports the execution of Nidal Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people and wounding more than 30 others in the 2009 mass shooting at Fort Hood. But sources close to Trump told CNN that the president was blindsided last week when Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced that the event—which is the first US execution of a soldier since World War II—would be livestreamed.

Backlash to the livestream was immediate and crossed political divides. On the morning Trump canceled the plans, an ABC News poll found 8 in 10 Americans were against the livestream, including a 55 percent majority of MAGA Republicans.

Insiders told ABC News that Trump feared that “broadcasting the execution could super charge anti-American propaganda or reflect poorly on the US.” Privately, Trump had remarked that “he did not initially know that Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down,” CNN reported. As one Army officer appalled by Hegseth’s announcement explained in a separate CNN report, livestreaming the execution “takes away everything America stands for.”

“The generational harm caused by allowing troops in uniform to stand in front of a man in a wheelchair and watch him get shot to death is irreparable,” the officer, who was deployed multiple times in the Middle East, told CNN.

Livestream risked identifying US soldiers

On Truth Social, Trump confirmed that Hasan “will die, as scheduled, by firing squad, but this event will not be streamed.” Families of victims will still be able to watch the execution, but the execution will not be broadcast for the public.

“I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a strong deterrent for the World to witness how America deals with Terrorists and SCUM like Hasan but, many very good and well-meaning people would rather not watch him die, through streaming, or through any other visual device,” Trump said.

Among “well-meaning people” who influenced Trump’s decision was Vice President JD Vance. On Friday, Vance told press that if the livestream happened, “I’m not going to be watching it.”

Beyond the potential harms of exposing the public to psychological trauma, the Pentagon seemingly had not considered other challenges the livestream might pose, CNN reported.

For example, it was unclear if the event could be broadcast anywhere but the Pentagon’s site, since social media and broadcast channels have rules against content depicting graphic violence. And for soldiers ordered to join the firing squad, the livestream risked making it possible to identify them, CNN warned.

When Hegseth initially announced that the execution would be livestreamed, he was talking to right-wing podcaster Jack Posobiec aboard the USS . Fresh off welcoming home soldiers who spent months in the Middle East, Hegseth told Posobiec, “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.”

As of Tuesday, the Department of Defense had backed the secretary, confirming that details of the livestream would be shared soon, and the event would happen as Hegseth had announced.

However, Trump emphasized in interviews that it wasn’t up to Hegseth to decide if the livestream would happen the way the secretary of defense prescribed on the podcast.

“I’ll make a decision, ultimately. I know what the military would like to do, but we’ll make a decision,” Trump said Saturday.