Washington (CNN) The Arizona Republican Party is calling on a Republican state lawmaker to resign after he said that "immigration today represents an existential threat to the United States" and "there aren't enough white kids to go around."

On Thursday, the Arizona Republican Party put out a statement from their chairman calling for Stringer to resign.

"In light of today's reports detailing Representative David Stringer's comments, I am calling on him to resign immediately," Arizona GOP Chairman Jonathan Lines said. "These words have no place in our party, or in our state."

A spokesman for Arizona GOP Gov. Doug Ducey said on Twitter that the governor also thinks Stringer should resign.

In response to a request for comment, Stringer emailed a statement to CNN accusing his political opponents of attempting to "distort" what he had to say.

"My political opponents have taken 51 seconds out of a 16-minute speech to try to distort my message and mislead voters. We recognize the tactic. I'm not interested in taking the fake news bait," he said in the statement.

The statement said his remarks touched on a number of issues, "including immigration -- both legal and illegal -- and the challenge of successfully assimilating large numbers of immigrants over a short period of time."