Twitter permanently suspended an account belonging to former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon after he suggested on Thursday morning that Dr. Anthony Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded. His comments were made in a video posted to his Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter accounts. Bannon claimed US President Trump had won reelection, despite several key states still being too close to call, and said that he should fire both Fauci and Wray. He then said he would go further: "I'd put the 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 program or you are gone." The comments came during a live-stream of Bannon's "War Room: Pandemic" online show. The video was live on Bannon's Facebook page for about 10 hours Thursday and had been viewed almost 200,000 times before Facebook removed it, citing its violence and incitement policies. CNN has reached out to Bannon for comment. Earlier Thursday evening YouTube removed the video for violating its policy against "inciting violence." Twitter said it had permanently suspended the account of Bannon's "War Room" podcast for glorifying violence. Bannon's comments came as other supporters of President Trump also used violent and militaristic rhetoric to back Trump's baseless claims of a rigged election and to condemn his perceived political opponents. Earlier on Thursday, Facebook shut down a pro-Trump group called "Stop The Steal," which amassed hundreds of thousands of members and had been coordinating protests that sought to challenge the election's legitimacy. Some members of the group posted about civil war and revolting against the government should Trump lose the election, according to a report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), a London-based think tank that monitors extremism. "So IF they give this to Joe, how do we go about overthrowing (sic) the government?" one member of the group asked in a post. Ciaran O'Connor, an analyst with ISD, said that, although such posts may be hyperbolic, Facebook groups can be used to coordinate offline protests or events that could turn violent. "It was possible for this group to become a hub for potentially violent behavior," O'Connor said. One of the administrators of the "Stop the Steal" group, Dustin Stockton, told CNN he did not see any messages within the group "calling for violence outside of what is common political hyperbole." He said Facebook's removal of the page was "out of line and they should restore it immediately." — Courtesy CNN
