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Trump Approves Firing Squad for Fort Hood Shooter, Tennessee Prison Chief Resigns After Failed Execution & Obama Talks James Baldwin · The Breakfast Club

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: President Trump has approved the execution of the Fort Hood
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: shooter by firing squad. We'll explain why the president had
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: to personally sign off and what happens next. And Tennessee's
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: prison chief is stepping down after Krista Pike survived her execution.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Now the state is investigating what went wrong.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: I would say that Pike appeared notably awake as.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: The execution began. And President Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates sit
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: down for a very personal conversation about race, power, and
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: what they see differently now.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: Did you really risk what you should have risked on
• 0:41
  Speaker 3: behalf of this cause, this issue, these people? Did you
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: speak as truthfully as you could?
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: It's Thursday, October 8th. From the Black Effect Podcast Network,
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I'm Amy Brown. This is Front Page, and here are
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: the day's biggest stories. Stay with me. President Trump has
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: approved the execution of Nidal Hassan by firing squad. Hassan
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: is a former Army psychiatrist who opened fire at Fort Hood,
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Texas in 2009, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: A military jury convicted him and sentenced him to death
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: in 2013. Now Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recommended that Hassan
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: be executed by firing squad and President Trump signed off.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: And so here's why the president is involved. Military death
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: sentences work differently. They cannot be carried out until the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: president personally approves them. Trump has now done that, but
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: that does not mean Hassan will be executed right away.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: He can still challenge his sentence in federal court, which
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: could delay the execution for years. That's happened before President
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: George W. Bush approved the execution of another former soldier
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: back in 2008, and a federal judge stopped it, and
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: that man is still on military death row. If Hassan's
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: execution does go forward, it would be the first U.S.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: military execution since 1961. There are currently four men on
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: military death row. Two are Black. And an update on
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: the story we brought you last week. The head of
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Tennessee's prison system is stepping down after Krista Pike survived
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: her execution. Pike was given two doses of the lethal
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: injection drug on September 30th. Neither killed her.
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: I would say that Pike appeared notably awake as the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: execution began. The curtains of the execution chamber closed for
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: the final time at around 8.06 p.m. And she could
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: be heard loudly snoring, clearly very alive in the chamber.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: until media witnesses were told to leave the area.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: Her attorneys say 50-year-old Krista Pike remains hospitalized after those
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: two injections, but she is awake and talking. Her prognosis
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: still remains unclear. Her attorneys believe there may have been
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: a problem with the IV lines causing the drug to
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: go into her tissue instead of directly into her bloodstream.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: And now Tennessee's prison commissioner, Frank Strada, says he will
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: resign later this month. Strada says he's stepping down while
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: an independent investigation looks into what went wrong. But he
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: says the prison system followed its execution rules. And this
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: is the second failed execution in Tennessee this year. The
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: governor has now paused all executions in the state through
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: the end of the year. Pike was sentenced to death
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: for killing 19-year-old Colleen Slammer in 1995. Pike was 18
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: at the time. Her attorneys are now asking the state
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: to spare her life. And former President Barack Obama is
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: sitting down with author Ta-Nehisi Coates for a very personal
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: conversation about race, power, and getting older. They're talking about
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: James Baldwin, The Fire, Next Time, the 1963 book about
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: racism and what it means to be Black in America.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: Both men say Baldwin helped shape the way they thought
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: about race when they were younger. But now they're coming
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: back to his work later in life with a different perspective.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: Obama talks about how some things that seemed clear when
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: he was younger feel much more complicated now. And then
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: he looks back at his own life, including his time
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: as president, and what he may see differently today.
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: But do you ever, like, think about, like, what writers
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: like this, like, how they would assess you? Because you're
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: like the target of it. You know what I mean? Well,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, you assess me. I mean, there are people who...
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: But I guess what I mean is like people who
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: helped form you. Yeah. I appreciate your compliment. I do
• 4:46
  Speaker 3: hear that, but... Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm in an
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: ongoing conversation with them. They're my ancestors. They're my ghosts.
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: They talk to me all the time. I hear their voices.
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: And they say, did you do enough?
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: Hmm.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: Did you really risk what you should have risked on
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: behalf of this cause, this issue, these people? Did you
• 5:26
  Speaker 3: speak as truthfully as you could in those circumstances? Are
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: you doing as much as you could right now and When,
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: you know, skies aflame.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Of course. Yes. I am, as my wife will attest,
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: a very tough critic on myself.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: Obama and Coates say that's part of what makes Baldwin's
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: work still feel relevant more than 60 years later. Baldwin
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: wrote about how far America had come while also confronting
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: how far it still has to go. And Obama says
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: those questions about race, power, and real change are questions
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: America is still trying to answer today. That's your Front Page.
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: I'm Mimi Brown. This podcast was brought to you by
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the Black Effect Podcast Network.