WASHINGTON—The White House blasted Sen. Sherrod Brown over his comments Sunday that a top adviser to President Trump “seems to be” a white supremacist and other staffers are sympathetic to such hate groups.

Brown’s remarks came during in an interview on Sunday with CNN, when he was asked if he agreed with a Democratic congresswoman, Florida Rep. Frederica Wilson, who had said the White House “is full of white supremacists.”

The Ohio Democrat said that Steve Bannon, a former high-level adviser to Trump, “is a white supremacist and Stephen Miller seems to be, and I know that studies have shown that they have their allies sprinkled around the White House.” Miller is a senior White House policy adviser.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders called Brown's comments "outrageous and slanderous." Josh Mandel, Ohio's treasurer and a Republican running for U.S. Senate, said in a statement that Brown's charges were "desperate, false and beneath the dignity of his office and the people of Ohio and he should apologize." Another GOP U.S. Senate candidate, Mike Gibbons, said Brown was "out of touch with Ohio voters."

On Monday, Brown reiterated that Bannon was a white supremacist. Brown said he would not apologize for his earlier comments.

Still, Brown – who is up for re-election in a state won handily by Trump – made a point to differentiate Trump's advisers from Trump's supporters.

“I, in no way, have said that Donald Trump got elected because his voters are white supremacists," Brown said Monday while promoting National Prescription Drug Takeback Day Saturday. "Donald Trump got elected in this state because he spoke to the fact that many, many, many Ohioans haven’t had a raise to speak of in the last 20 years.”

Brown's assertions escalate a feud between the White House and Wilson, the Florida congresswoman who blasted Trump over his handling of a phone call to the widow of fallen soldier Sergeant La David Johnson.

Wilson was in the car with Johnson's widow when Trump called her. She said he made insensitive remarks about her husband, and she later ratcheted up her anti-Trump rhetoric to charge that the White House is "full of white supremacists."