Note from our Editor-in-Chief:
This article is part of our series on the ‘Four Horsemen of the Trump-ocalypse.’ We believe this is the moment to capture the damage the Trump administration has inflicted throughout the U.S. and the world – and profile some of the people in this administration most responsible. The only way we can report original, long-form stories like these is with your support. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 here – and please join Swin and Prem for a live conversation Friday at noon ET (9am PT) as they discuss their reporting for this series. – Mehdi
For years, Donald Trump has fetishized deadly war crimes, and also the allure and entertainment value of public executions. On both fronts, Pete Hegseth – the former ‘Fox & Friends Weekend’ co-host and current so-called “secretary of war” – has been the president’s premier errand boy.
Since January 2025, when he ascended to the top of the Pentagon despite a deluge of scandal and allegations that nearly sank his nomination, Hegseth has towered above the rest of Trump 2.0’s cabinet secretaries as the appointee most eager to quench Trump’s incessant bloodlust and desires for regional conquest and lawless, brutal domination of his enemies, foreign and domestic.
Hegseth has at times proposed actions that go too far, even for Trump, whose baying for blood is sporadically tempered by his own cowardice. Perhaps the most grisly example of Hegseth out-Trumping the sadistically maximalist president took place over the past week, after the Trump-Vance administration announced it would stage not only the first official public execution in the U.S. in nearly a century, but the first one streamed live on the internet. Hegseth argued it was necessary because “people need to understand that there’s serious consequences.”
Trump approved this vile plan, but apparently didn’t know some key details, people familiar with the matter tell Zeteo: Namely, the convicted mass murderer slated to be executed in December is partly paralyzed and confined to a wheelchair. “He’s in a fucking wheelchair?” Trump privately exclaimed, telling people that Hegseth never told him that and that killing an old guy in a wheelchair might not look cool.
Suddenly, reports trickled out that the plan to broadcast the execution was in jeopardy. Trump announced Thursday morning the livestream is off – “many very good and well meaning people would rather not watch,” he said – though the execution will move forward. This shambolic episode of will-they-won’t-they, when it comes to broadcasting real-time footage of a military snuff film, is a perfect distillation of what Hegseth has done as defense secretary, under the watchful gaze and direction of the Trump White House, to the Pentagon in relatively short order.
Hegseth has operationalized the president’s core demands for gun-brandishing spite, boastful bigotry, naked imperialism, and violent spectacle – and the former Fox host is using every lever of the U.S. military and its civilian command to bring Trump’s vindictive, MAGA-branded militarism to life, abroad and at home.
When Hegseth pitched the idea for livestreaming Nidal Hasan’s execution by military firing squad, he wasn’t freelancing. He was just giving Trump what the president had been telling his team he wanted – for more than a decade, at least.