Rep. Bobby Bright said Thursday that he is not sorry for suggesting that Speaker Nancy Pelosi could “get sick and die” during remarks at a recent district event.

“There is nothing to apologize for. There was no ill will behind it,” the Alabama Democrat told his local paper, Dothan Eagle.

Bright said he was “very surprised” that he caused such a stir with his comments, which came last week at a local Chamber of Commerce breakfast. Responding to a question about whether he would vote for the California Democrat as Speaker for another term, Bright said any number of things could happen between now and January that would render such a question moot, including Pelosi’s death.

“It was never meant the way it has blown up. It was simply a list of things that could happen,” he told the newspaper.

The freshman Democrat said he has not spoken to Pelosi since his remarks, but guessed that she “knows it was taken out of proportion.”

A Pelosi spokesman declined to comment.