Senator Tommy Tuberville has unexpectedly backtracked on his defense of white nationalists after claiming that not all Americans who identify that way are racist. The sudden about-face came after a Monday interview with CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, who asked the Alabama senator to address comments he made in May, when he suggested that white nationalists should simply be regarded as “Americans.”

A white nationalist, she said, is someone who believes “the white race is superior to other races.” Tuberville disagreed. “Well, that’s some people’s opinion,” he responded. “My opinion of a white nationalist, if someone wants to call them white nationalist, to me, is an American. It’s an American. Now, if that white nationalist is a racist, I’m totally against anything that they want to do, because I am 110% against racism.” Tuberville later attempted to flip the script, claiming that Democrats have popularized the term as part of their “identity politics” agenda that’s “ruining this country.” He also refused to back down from his past stance that white nationalists should be allowed to serve in the US military.

On Tuesday, however, Tuberville suddenly changed his tune after some of his Republican colleagues—including Alabama senator Katie Britt and Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell—rebuffed his remarks. “White nationalists are racists,” he told Wall Street Journal reporter Lindsay Wise. But Tuberville wasn’t entirely repentant, insisting that Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer should apologize for calling Tuberville’s support of white nationalists “very dangerous.”

During the CNN interview, he also attempted to preemptively wave away accusations of racism, citing his past experience coaching Black college-football players. “I was a football coach for 40 years and had the opportunity to be around more minorities than anybody up here on this Hill,” he said. (And yet, he conveniently failed to mention that those players made no money from their labor, even as coaches like Tuberville raked in millions off of college athletics.)

As for his support of white nationalist service members—which touched off this controversy back in May—Tuberville remained adamant Monday while speaking to CNN. “Well, that’s just a name that has been given [to them],” Tuberville said, conflating white nationalists with all white soldiers. “If we’re going to do away with most white people in this country out of the military, we’ve got huge problems.” When Collins rejected that premise—“It’s not people who are white. It’s white nationalists,” she said—the senator scrambled to cover his bases. “[They] have a few probably different beliefs, they have different beliefs,” he said. “Now, if racism is one of those beliefs, I’m totally against it. I’m totally against racism.”

Of course, white nationalists—or those who support the creation of a white ethnostate—are by definition racist, which makes Tuberville’s condemnation of “racist” white nationalists nonsensical. But that hardly gets at the key question: Why would a sitting senator openly defend white nationalists to begin with? It’s possible Tuberville views them as his constituents or allies. Or—in a more charitable interpretation—maybe Tuberville is literally unaware that white nationalism, as a political ideology, has been around for nearly a century. In any case, he seems to think the term was invented recently by Democratic Party propagandists.

Setting aside Tuberville’s commentary on white nationalism, he has also made headlines for protesting a Pentagon policy that offers paid leave and travel reimbursement to service members who have to cross state lines to obtain an abortion. In an attempt to have that policy revoked, Tuberville is blocking key military appointments that must be approved by the Senate Armed Services Committee he serves on. This running protest has now resulted in the Marine Corps not having a confirmed leader for the first time since 1859.