In case my reader missed it, the show has been cancelled. Not the execution, just the show.
Steve Benen suggests polls deterred the President:
The statement appears to resolve a burgeoning debate and bipartisan backlash over the kind of public display that is ordinarily limited to countries like Iran and the Taliban-led Afghanistan.
Trump’s decision came just hours after a nationwide poll released by The Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos found that 80% of Americans opposed livestreaming Hasan’s firing squad execution.
But it’s worth noting that Trump is a self-proclaimed branding expert, and executing a man in a wheelchair on a livestream would have added a repulsive facet to the Trump and Republican Party brands – as the cited polls suggest.
But by cancelling the show due to polls, rather than common decency, does suggest both men are not up to the moral standard required of their elective stations. It’s a disappointment that Speaker Johnson (R-LA) lacks the backbone to initiate the necessary proceedings.
