GOP candidate stands by his claims that Islam is a 'cancer' and some Africans wish they were slaves

After CNN's KFile revealed a fresh set of racist comments made by New Jersey GOP candidate Seth Grossman, the Republican nominee for the House of Representatives refused to back down.

"A CNN KFile review of Grossman's Facebook page and blog show he has frequently railed against diversity in modern-day America and uses inflammatory and derogatory language to describe Muslims and African-Americans," the report read.

Grossman has at various points claimed devout Muslims can't be "good Americans," referred to Islam as a "cancer" and said gay men who have HIV should have been "quarantined" in the 1980's epidemic of the virus.

Grossman, a former city councilman in Atlantic City and onetime challenger to former NJ Gov. Chris Christie, attained national headlines earlier in June when an undercover video at one of his fundraisers caught him saying diversity is "a bunch of crap and un-American." Later, Media Matters uncovered the GOP candidate's long history of racist and bigoted comments towards black people and Muslims.

In one 2017 post published in Media Matters' report, Grossman said he'd heard of "many Africans who wish their ancestors had been taken to America as slaves."

In a statement to CNN, Grossman defended his comments.

"Over the years, I often made provocative statements for the purpose of provoking interest and open discussion on vitally important issues I believed were being ignored," the candidate wrote in an email to KFile. "Although some of the statements in your email below include some generalizations and remarks that may be offensive to some, I believe they were necessary to bring attention to important issues."

"I also believe them to be substantially true," he added.