Former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci on Sunday lashed out at Steve Bannon for saying his previous comments about Fauci were a “metaphor.”
Fauci was asked about Bannon's comments he made earlier on ABC's “This Week” on Sunday. The former Trump adviser argued that his previous comments suggesting that Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray should be beheaded were a metaphor.
Fauci pushed back against Bannon, saying some people might react to such comments.
“Yes, that's nonsense, 'figurative language.' Words matter, and he thinks it's figurative language. And then you might have one out of 500 who's an idiot, who doesn't think it's figurative language, and thinks it's a mandate to go ahead and do something,” Fauci said.
“And so, these people who say they can say whatever they want, but it’s a metaphor, they don’t believe it. That’s nonsense. Words matter,” Fauci added.
Bannon, a former strategist for former President Trump, has been ordered to report to prison by July 1 on his charges of contempt of Congress. In an earlier interview on “This Week,” Bannon defended himself over his past comments calling for Wray and Fauci's heads to be put on spikes.
“In this town, people say a thousand times a day, ‘We should put their head on a pike.’ We put his head on a pike.’ It was a metaphor,” Bannon said.
ABC's Jonathan Karl noted that Bannon made these comments as Fauci and Wray “were facing death threats.”
“It's a total metaphor. Everyone understands that. That's your – by the way, they banned us, I think, on Twitter. That's why they banned us on Facebook. Guess what? The show got even bigger,” Bannon responded.
Karl was referring to Bannon's 2020 comments on his 'War Room' podcast.
“I would actually go back to the old days of Tudor England. I would put their heads on pikes, right? I would put them on the two corners of the White House as a warning to federal bureaucrats: You're either on the program or you're gone,” Bannon said at the time.
Facebook did not delete Bannon's account at the time, but it did remove the video of the comments. Twitter, the social media platform now known as X, suspended his podcast account at the time.
Fauci has previously spoken openly about the death threats he received while leading the White House COVID-19 response. He sobbed as he spoke about the threats made to him and his family during his testimony before a House committee earlier this month.
