Dr. Anthony Fauci responded to former Trump adviser Steve Bannon’s call for his head on a pike when asked about his experience working in the White House during an interview Wednesday.
Fauci was asked on the Australian TV news program “The 7:30 Report” about “managing a pandemic and dealing with Donald Trump at the same time,” The Hill reported. He cited Bannon’s controversial comments from early November as an example of the difficulty of going from a doctor to a public figure. (RELATED: Dr. Scott Atlas Attacks Fauci, Raising Tensions Among Task Force Members)
“Well, it’s obviously been very stressful,” Fauci said. “To deny that would be to deny reality. When you have public figures like Bannon calling for your beheading, that’s really kind of unusual, I think. That’s not the kind of thing you think about when you’re going through medical school to be a physician. But I’ve gotten through it by really focusing like a laser beam on exactly what my goal is.”
All of us are stressed and having a hard time, but at least we’re not dealing with this.
“When you have public figures like [former Trump advisor Steve] Bannon calling for your beheading, that’s really kind of unusual.” – Anthony Fauci pic.twitter.com/RVqtAqH9Ns
— David T. Ho (@_david_ho_) November 11, 2020
Bannon’s comments came during his show, “War Room: Pandemic” that was live-streamed on Facebook and later taken down.
“I’d put the heads on pikes,” Bannon said of Fauci and FBI Director Christopher Wray. “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.”
Twitter went on to suspend Bannon in response to the comments. (RELATED: Dr. Fauci Estimates Vaccine Will Be Available To Anyone Who Wants One By April 2021)
President Donald Trump suggested on the campaign trail earlier this month that he would consider firing Fauci after the election. Fauci said during the Wednesday interview that he tries to ignore the controversies surrounding him and focus on his job.
“If you focus on that and don’t get distracted by all the other noise, then it’s not as bad as you might think it is,” Fauci stated on the Australian broadcast. “It’s when you start to focus on that other junk as I call it, it’s noise. It’s meaningless. People calling for you to be beheaded, fired, thrown in the fire pit or whatever, that’s just noise.”