On Sunday, the editor of the New York Daily News defended his paper’s use of provocative front pages — labeling NRA head Wayne LaPierre a “terrorist” and blasting do-nothing politicians for responding to shootings with “empty platitudes” — saying he doesn’t think they’re too extreme.

Speaking with CNN’s Brian Stelter, Daily News Editor-in-Chief Jim Rich said he complaints from conservatives about his paper are just attempts to “shift the conversation and the narrative” away from the primary issues.

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In the case of the “God Isn’t Fixing This” cover — accusing politicians of words but not deeds in the wake of shootings — host Stelter noted that it was “hotly debated on Fox News and in other parts of the conservative media,” over so-called “prayer shaming.”

The host pressed the editor over whether he thought his “message was lost.”

“I think it may have been by some people,” Rich replied,”That may have been unintentional or intentional in many cases. It was convenient to try and shift the conversation and the narrative that the New York Daily News is somehow condemning either God, religion or prayer.”

Told by Stelter that calling the politician’s tweets “meaningless platitudes” might be considered offensive to religious Americans, Rich didn’t back down.

“What I think they should be more offended by is the fact that politicians have a track record — and these specific politicians have a track record — of prayer and these meaningless platitudes, and it’s the only thing that they’re offering for the most part as a solution for what is a tremendous problem facing the American people right now,” Rich said.

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After Stelter labeled the “terrorist Wayne LaPierre” cover as something that could be considered “hate speech,” Rich called the assertion “a little extreme.”

Addressing the NRA and LaPierre, Rich stated, “The stonewalling and the bait-and-switch that goes on from the lobby he represents is, to us, a form of terrorism because it terrorizes the safety of innocent American people.”

Watch the video below from CNN: