Twitter has banned Steve Bannon’s account from its platform after the former White House chief strategist suggested Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded if President Donald Trump wins a second term, according to multiple news sources.
Bannon made the controversial remarks Thursday during an episode of his video podcast “War Room: Pandemic,” where he kicked off the show by saying Trump’s next four years should start with “firing Wray” and “firing Fauci.”
“Now I actually want to go a step farther, but I realize the president is a kindhearted man and a good man. I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put the heads on pikes, right,” Bannon said, according to accounts of the video. “I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: ‘You either get with the program or you’re gone — time to stop playing games.’ Blow it all up, put Ric Grenell today as the interim head of the FBI. That’ll light them up, right.”
Grenell is Trump’s campaign adviser and former acting director of national intelligence and ex-U.S. ambassador to Germany.
Fauci is the nation’s foremost epidemiologist and head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. As one of the most vocal and respected members of the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Fauci’s opinions about the nation’s handling of the pandemic have often conflicted with that of the president’s.
The conversation about the infectious disease expert turned to the topic of civil war when Bannon’s co-host Jack Maxey chimed in saying, “You know what, Steve? Just yesterday there was the anniversary of the hanging of two Tories in Philadelphia. 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,” CBS reported.
Bannon replied, “That’s how you won the revolution. No one wants to talk about it. The revolution wasn’t some sort of garden party, right? It was a civil war. It was a civil war.”
Twitter took immediate action against Bannon and issued a statement addressing his views.
“The @WarRoomPandemic account has been permanently suspended for violating the Twitter Rules, specifically our policy on the glorification of violence,” a Twitter spokesperson told CBS News on Friday. “We have policies in place that address clear threats of violence, abuse and harassment, and hateful conduct. If we identify any accounts or content that violate these rules, we’ll take enforcement action.”
Bannon also posted the talk show video on Facebook, where it was viewed nearly 200,000 times in 10 hours, according to CBS. Facebook has allowed Bannon’s account to remain active, although late Thursday the social media giant reportedly removed the videos for violating its policy on inciting violence, reports said.
YouTube also reportedly yanked the episode, according to CNBC, but the platform has a three-strikes policy before an account can be terminated.
A spokeswoman for Bannon said his statements were taken out of context, and that Trump’s former top adviser was only speaking metaphorically, adding that he “never called for violence of any kind,” the outlet reported.
“Mr. Bannon has been openly critical of FBI Director Chris Wray for weeks and has called for his firing for his failure to investigate and address Hunter Biden’s hard drive and that has been in Director Wray’s possession since in Dec 2019,” she said, according to CNBC.
Bannon, who ran Trump’s 2016 campaign and served as a senior White House adviser until Trump fired him in August 2017, is free on $5 million bond after being charged this year with defrauding donors who gave money to help build Trump’s border wall with Mexico.
Prosecutors say Bannon received $1 million in funds from We Build the Wall and diverted the money using a separate nonprofit he had already created, whose ostensible purpose was “promoting economic nationalism and American sovereignty,” CNBC reported.
Also Thursday, Facebook banned a large group called “Stop the Steal” that supporters of President Trump were using to organize protests against the presidential vote count. Some members had called for violence, while many falsely claimed that Democrats are “stealing” the election from Republicans.
Though the group amassed more than 350,000 members before Facebook took it down, it was just one of several smaller groups that popped up as vote counting extended for days in several battleground states. Inside the groups, members and organizers tried to ensure they would get around Facebook’s moderators and “trolls” who might report or mock them.
Information provided by The Associated Press was used to supplement this report.
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