Why This Topic Landed in Japan

Two episodes from the Trump administration drew Japanese attention. The Pentagon had planned to livestream, on social media, the firing-squad execution of a death-row inmate tied to the 2009 Fort Hood shooting; on October 15 Trump said he was calling the livestream off because "many good people don't want to watch someone die," while the execution itself was to proceed. Separately, the Wall Street Journal and others reported that the new White House press secretary, Katie Zacharia — introduced as having a legal background — had not passed the California bar and had previously worked at a law firm in China. In Japan the mix of a state nearly broadcasting an execution and an anti-China administration hiring someone with a China work history read as both absurd and ironic. Calling it outright résumé fraud overstates it; she did not pass the bar, and the leap from a China work history to espionage is not supported.

Key Reaction Themes

  • Revulsion at the livestream plan (most common) — Most comments called broadcasting an execution "the same as what terrorists do" and "medieval," and treated the cancellation as obviously the right call.
  • Eye-rolling at Trump's reversals — A recurring note was that Trump "flip-flops" and would "say something different by tomorrow."
  • Doubts about the spokesperson hire — On the press secretary, surprise at a failed bar exam and a China work history mixed with the irony of an anti-China administration making the pick, drawing jabs about "half a spy" and "is this pro wrestling?" A few offered cooler takes on the US spoils system and what a law license actually means.

What Japanese Netizens Are Saying

Calling off the execution livestream

Trump drops a plan to livestream a death-row inmate's execution on social media after public backlash; the execution itself goes ahead.

Sources: 47NEWS, 2ch

Comments:

  • "A country that livestreams killing people is messed up — it's the same thing terrorists do."
  • "Good, good. Calling it off was the right call."
  • "Figured as much — I thought it would turn out like this."
  • "If you did that, your own execution would probably get livestreamed someday too."
  • "What they're doing is straight out of the Middle Ages."
  • "In this era the footage stays around, so an execution video was bound to spread online and get used as anti-American propaganda by hostile states and terrorists."
  • "Generous, for a president who was nearly shot himself."
  • "The nerve of planning to go through with it if there'd been no backlash is just baffling."
  • "Between the Iran invasion and this, Hegseth is wrecking the approval ratings."
  • "He really flip-flops, lol."
  • "By tomorrow he'll be saying something different."
  • "Why don't Trump's aides talk him out of it?"
  • "So the world's values were still normal after all."
  • "Yeah, that figures. Trump's no good."

A spokesperson's law credentials

Reports say new White House press secretary Katie Zacharia called herself a lawyer despite failing the bar, and once worked at a Chinese law firm.

Sources: Yahoo! news, 2ch

Comments:

  • "And apparently she worked at a Chinese law firm."
  • "They really appointed someone who lived in China? Aren't the US and China fighting for supremacy? Or is it all pro wrestling?"
  • "With an executive order she can just receive a law license, so we're good 🙆"
  • "In a certain country, apparently the PM faking her résumé doesn't even become an issue."
  • "Trump: 'Fine, let's just give this one a law license.'"
  • "That's very Trump."
  • "If she actually did hands-on work in China, it's not really worth jumping on — how silly."
  • "Even if she were a lawyer, what connections get you the spokesperson job?"
  • "America runs on a spoils system, a bit different from Japan."
  • "Over here our own PM Takaichi calls herself a self-described US congressional legislative researcher."