US election: Twitter bans Donald Trump’s former adviser

Twitter has banned an account belonging to Steve Bannon, a former adviser to the U.S President Donald Trump, for calling for the beheading of Anthony Fauci, the American physician overseeing the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., the U.S media has reported.

Bannon, in his podcast which was distributed on social media, also called for the beheading of the FBI director, Christopher Wray, and their heads displayed at the White House.

“Second term kicks off with firing Wray, firing Fauci … no I actually want to go a step farther but the president is a kind-hearted man and a good man,” Bannon said, according to a report in the U.K Guardian.

“I’d actually like to go back to the old times of Tudor England. I’d put their heads on pikes, right, I’d put them at the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats, you either get with the programme or you’re gone.”

The paper reported that Twitter banned Bannon’s War Room account permanently, saying it had suspended the podcast account for violating its policy on the glorification of violence.

Fauci has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984 and has, on several occasions, publicly disagreed with President Trump over COVID-19 management in the U.S.

The democratic candidate, Joe Biden’s potential defeat of Trump in the U.S presidential election has been partly attributed to the administration’s handling of the pandemic.

Fauci recently told a U.S newspaper recently that Mr Biden campaign was taking the COVID-19 issue “seriously, from a public health perspective”, while President Trump’s focus was about “the economy and reopening the country”.

Trump’s supporters at a rally on Sunday in Florida chanted, “Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci! Fire Fauci!”

“Don’t tell anybody, but let me wait till a little bit after the election,” Trump had responded to his supporters at the Florida rally.