Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Thursday blasted accusations that the United States is systemically racist as “horse manure,” and further said critical race theory is a race-based form of Marxism.

Asked to respond to the claim that America is “a systemically racist country,” DeSantis told Fox News host Laura Ingraham during a town hall that such a proposition is “a bunch of horse manure.”

“I mean, give me a break. This country has had more opportunity for more people than any country in the history of the world, and it doesn’t matter where you trace your ancestry from,” DeSantis said to applause from the audience. “We’ve had people that have been able to succeed.”

“And here’s the problem with things like critical race theory that they’re peddling,” DeSantis continued, pivoting to the controversial academic movement that some states such as Florida and Idaho have taken measures to ban from their public schools. “They’re basically saying all our institutions are bankrupt, and they’re illegitimate.”

“Okay, so how do you have a society if everything in your society is illegitimate?” asked DeSantis. “So it’s a very harmful ideology, and I would say, really, a race-based version of a Marxist-type ideology. So we’ve banned it in our schools here in Florida. We’re not going to put any taxpayer dollars to critical race theory, and we want to treat people as individuals, not as members of groups.”

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Last month, DeSantis announced his state’s curriculum will “expressly exclude…critical race theory.” As The Daily Wire reported:

[DeSantis] said that the state’s civic education should focus on “foundational principles” rather than narratives such as critical race theory that views all of history through the lens of race, and suggests that racism still infects almost every institution in the U.S. today.

Critical race theory has gained traction recently, being prominently displayed in The New York Times’ ‘1619 Project,’ which reframed the history of the United States as a country entirely built on slavery rather than on the principles of the Declaration of Independence.

“Florida civics curriculum will incorporate foundational concepts with the best materials, and it will expressly exclude unsanctioned narratives like critical race theory and other unsubstantiated theories,” DeSantis said. “Let me be clear, there’s no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory. Teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money. So we will invest in actual, solid, true curriculum and we will be a leader in the development and implementation of a world class civics education.”

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Former President Donald Trump issued an executive order purging critical race theory from the federal government, which President Joe Biden rescinded during his first day in office.