Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) on Monday did not back away from his accusation that Democrats are waging a “war on whites” during an interview with AL.com.

On Monday morning, Brooks told radio host Laura Ingraham that Democrats have made Republicans’ push for stronger border security about race.

“This is a part of the war on whites that’s being launched by the Democratic Party. And the way in which they’re launching this war is by claiming that whites hate everybody else,” he said.

Ingraham told him that his comment was “a little out there.”

During an interview with AL.com on Monday afternoon, Brooks defended and elaborated on his comment.

“In effect, what the Democrats are doing with their dividing America by race is they are waging a war on whites and I find that repugnant,” he told AL.com.

“They’re attacking, by the Democrats’ opening soliciting votes of people based on skin color, they in turn are attacking whites based on skin color and that’s wrong. Nobody should be attacked based on skin color,” he continued.

Brooks then accused Democrats of injecting race into every issue they can, not just immigration issues.

“The Democrats do it on a regular basis and you can see it in the campaign appeals that they make based on skin color. I don’t know of a single Republican who has made an appeal for votes based on skin color. I don’t know of one,” he said. “The Democrats routinely make appeals based on race and they get away with it. It’s repugnant to ever make an appeal based on race.”

When asked if using the phrase “war on whites” would distract from his message, Brooks said he does the best he can to call attention to the issue.

“I’m one of those who does not believe in racism and I believe everyone should be treated equally as American citizens. It’s high time folks started calling out the Democrats for their racial appeals,” he said. “Certainly if you were to flip the coin and a white person were to say vote for me because I’m white, it would be an uproar and deservedly so. So why do we allow blacks to say vote for me because I’m black or Hispanics vote for me because I’m Hispanic? Race is immaterial and everybody ought to be treated the same.”