Hours after saying Thursday that President Donald Trump withheld foreign aid in order to get Ukraine’s help in the U.S. election, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney walked back his remarks.

He released a lengthy statement wrongly blaming the press for putting a spin on his comments.

“Once again, the media has decided to misconstrue my comments to advance a biased and political witch hunt against President Trump,” he said. “Let me be clear, there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”

But the remarks Mulvaney made at a news conference earlier in the day were not vague.

“We do that all the time with foreign policy,” Mulvaney said when ABC News reporter Jon Karl noted that it would constitute a quid pro quo if the U.S. was withholding funding from Ukraine unless it agreed to do an investigation into the Democrats’ server.