Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker was grilled on Sunday over the hypocrisy of his close ties to the Koch Brothers while fighting “liberal special interests” such as public unions and Planned Parenthood.

During an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, Walker suggested that he was running as an “outsider” — like Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — because he had taken on special interest groups while serving as the governor of Wisconsin.

ADVERTISEMENT

“I’ve shown that I can take on those same powerful special interests,” Walker insisted. “It was the big government union bosses and the liberal special interests in Washington.”

“I respect that you’ve taken on liberal special interests,” Tapper noted. “But you’ve been backed by Republican special interests like the Koch brothers, right? How does that square with what you are saying about taking on specials interests or do you think only liberal special interests are the ones worth taking on?”

“I’m taking on the ones in Washington,” Walker insisted. “And in my state, I didn’t just take on the unions and Democrats… I’m willing to take on anyone. I stood up to 100,000 protesters, I took on the death threats, I took on threats [to] my family.”

“But aren’t the Koch brothers special interests too?” Tapper pressed. “Can you give me an example of one time you took on a conservative special interests?”

“I raised 80 million in three and a half years, 70 percent of it came from people who gave me $75 or less,” Walker argued. “We’ve raised from over 300,000 donors in all 50 states.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“The folks in my own party, I’ve spoken out — I’ve spoken out about my frustration about Obamacare,” he continued. “I’ve spoken out about things like Planned Parenthood, which I defunded more than four years ago in a blue state long before these video tapes. We did it in a blue state, there’s no reason it can’t be done in Washington, and I lay some of that blame on some of the leadership in the Congress.”

Watch the video below from CNN’s State of the Union, broadcast Sept. 13, 2014.