Iowa congressman Steve King announced plans to run for reelection despite multiple controversies prompting Republican challengers to come forward against the nine-time incumbent.

King was stripped from his committees in Congress and disavowed by multiple elected officials including Iowa Sens. Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst after making racist remarks to a New York Times reporter in January.

“White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King asked in the interview.

Despite these, and many other comments of a similar nature, King said he had “nothing to apologize for,” in an interview with Iowa Public Television’s David Yepsen on Meet the Press.

In these same comments King said he would be running for Congress again, even if he will have to fight against some of the three Republican candidates currently vying for King’s seat in a primary election.

“Don’t let the elitists in this country, the power brokers in this country, tell you who’s going to represent you in the United States Congress,” King said during the Meet the Press interview.

King made multiple statements following the New York Times interview clarifying some of the points he made. He also denied the legitimacy of some of the other quotes, saying he never received a recording of the interview.

“When I used the word ‘that’ it was in reference only to Western Civilization and not to any previously stated evil ideology, all of which I have denounced,” King said. “My record as a vocal advocate for Western Civilization is nearly as full as my record in defense of Freedom of Speech.”

While King’s removal from congressional committees was in response to one of his controversial remarks, those remarks weren’t his first; rather, it was his first controversial comment that happened after the midterm election, in which King won by 4 percent — his closest election to date.

King has gained notoriety in the past from retweeting accounts affiliated with neo-Nazis. He also did an interview with Unzensuriert, a right-wing Austrian publication that was founded by former Nazi SS officer, although the news outlet has since denounced its Nazi ties.

In the interview, King said Muslims and liberals had “teamed up against Western civilization.”

“Between the two of them, it is like fighting a two front war,” King said. “So how is it that the liberals, the leftists, on the one side, could build an alliance with the misogynistic hard core rightist Islamic people that have no tolerance for anything?”

Possibly one of King’s most famous quotes came in an interview with CNN when the congressman said, “You cannot rebuild your civilization with somebody else’s babies,” encouraging citizens of European nations to increase their birth rate so they wouldn’t become a minority culture.