Missouri Sen. Bill Eigel issued a statement on Thursday clarifying his remarks after facing criticism for falsely claiming that a crowd burned “woke pornographic books” at a recent GOP event.
Eigel said he had misspoken in an interview and his “intent was to express disdain for woke social agendas, not to advocate censorship or book burning.”
“There was no book burning at the event in question. I do not support book burning, nor would I,” he said, noting that his comments weren’t meant to be taken literally.
The Senator explained he used the “analogy of book burning” to “speak of a figurative desire to reject concepts like critical race theory, gender identity politics, and other aspects of the radical agenda” that are often “buried within so-called ‘woke’ social movements.”
Eigel added he doesn’t have “any intention of physically torching a book,” noting that he regretted his choice of words and apologizes to anyone pedantically literal about his previous statement.
