Donald Trump’s former strategist Steve Bannon has been permanently banned from Twitter after suggesting he would like to behead top US medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci.
During an episode of his podcast War Room: Pandemic, Bannon discussed the imagined beheadings of Fauci and FBI director Christopher Wray, saying he would like to put their “heads on pikes” outside the White House as a “warning.”
Fauci is currently protected by extra government security after receiving death threats.
The former top strategist characterised Trump as a “kind-hearted man” who presumably would be opposed to such an action – but didn’t hesitate to promote violence himself.
“I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes. I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats,” he explained, as Media Matters for America first reported.
“You either get with the programme or you’re gone ― time to stop playing games,” Bannon added. “Blow it all up.”
Bannon’s co-host Jack Maxey appeared to agree, indicating that the men were “traitors.”
“You know what, Steve, yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia,” Maxey said. “These were Quaker businessmen who had cohabitated, if you will, with the British while they were occupying Philadelphia. These people were hung. This is what we used to do to traitors.”
“That’s how you win the revolution,” Bannon said. “The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party. It was a civil war.”
Twitter has now permanently suspended Bannon’s account, and YouTube has removed his video discussing the imagined beheadings.
In the face of Trump’s constant minimising of the threat posed by Covid-19, Fauci – the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases – has urged the public to follow strict measures to combat the coronavirus.
More than 230,000 people have died of the virus in the US, and on Thursday officials recorded more than 100,000 cases in a single day for the first time since the start of the pandemic.
In August, Fauci said that Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s rhetoric had prompted “some of the crazies in society to start threatening me.”
He went on to cite “divisiveness in the country” for further abetting those making threats against him, even though he is just “trying to promote public health principles to save people’s lives,” he said.
Bannon is currently out on bail on federal fraud charges for allegedly using hundreds of thousands of dollars in donations on personal expenses. The money was raised to fund the private construction of a section of Trump’s southern border wall.