Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, one of the GOP’s leading candidates for the presidential nomination, linked protesting union members in his home state with the ISIS terrorist group.

"If I can take on 100,000 protesters, I can do the same across the world,” Walker told the Conservative Political Action Conference, in response to a question about how he would fight the terrorist group, which has killed thousands in Iraq and Syria.

Walker has stirred up a hornet’s nest of union protests in Wisconsin, after pledging to sign a right-to-work bill last month in Wisconsin. In addition, he previously decimated collective bargaining rights for thousands of public employees.

Walker later attempted to back away from the blunder, but even a fellow union basher, GOP Texas Gov. Rick Perry, denounced him. “These are Americans,” Perry said. “You are talking about, in the case of ISIS, people who are beheading individuals and committing heinous crimes, who are the face of evil. To try to make the relationship between them and the unions is inappropriate.”