JEFFERSON CITY — A St. Charles County state senator running for governor on Monday threatened to burn books on the lawn of the Governor’s Mansion if voters elect him in 2024.
Sen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, was responding on X, formerly Twitter, to criticism of a video showing him at a St. Charles County political event burning a stack of cardboard boxes with a flamethrower.
Fellow state Sen. Nick Schroer, R-Defiance, was alongside Eigel in the video, which was widely shared on social media.
Critics claimed online that the senators were torching books. Eigel said they were cardboard boxes.
Here’s the full video for all to see! Enjoy! And join us today at to fight back against these woke radicals.
— William Eigel (@BillEigel)
The boxes, Eigel wrote, represented “what I am going to do to the leftist policies and RINO corruption of the Jeff City swamp.”
“But let’s be clear, you bring those woke, pornographic books to Missouri schools to try to brainwash our kids, and I’ll burn those too — on the front lawn of the governor’s mansion,” Eigel wrote.
People are also reading…
As of Monday evening, Eigel’s X account was suspended. Eigel’s page displayed a message that said, “Twitter suspends accounts which violate the Twitter Rules.”
Eigel and Schroer said the video was filmed at the St. Charles County Republican Central Committee’s Freedom Fest, held Friday at Sugar Creek winery in Defiance.
“No books or human beings were harmed, burned, or targeted in the filming of that video,” Schroer said Monday in a text message. “It sure is telling that liberals have to stoop to promoting lies, hate, and divisiveness to distract from the failed policies of their party and their president.”
Eigel’s comments on book burning generated attention on social media, where he was compared to a Nazi.
Nazis in Germany burned books, including the works of Jewish, liberal and leftist authors, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
The museum said burnings of books deemed “un-German” in May 1933 presaged an era of government cultural control under the Nazis.
Eigel faces Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe and Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft in the August 2024 GOP primary.
House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, a Springfield Democrat and also a candidate for governor, lashed out at Eigel on Monday:
“Bill Eigel and his extremist allies’ idea of campaigning for governor is using a flamethrower to burn whatever he doesn’t agree with,” Quade said in a statement.
“We deserve a government that’s going to work to solve real problems, not make political stunts,” Quade said.