Billionaire venture investor Peter Thiel bolstered his backing for Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, saying the nation needs a political outsider to fix its systemic problems.

“What Trump represents isn’t crazy and it isn’t going away,” Thiel said Monday at the National Press Club in Washington. Expensive wars, spiraling student debt and trade imbalances are among the top challenges for the country that haven’t been solved by mainstream politicians who suggest the U.S. is moving in a good direction. “We are voting for Trump because we judge the leadership of our country has failed.”

Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member who co-founded PayPal and Palantir Technologies Inc., has been a political lightning rod this election season, attracting scorn from Silicon Valley leaders who almost uniformly oppose the Republican presidential nominee.

Silicon Valley investors, executives and academics -- people who donated heavily to elect Democrat Barack Obama in the past two presidential elections -- oppose Trump for a number of reasons, calling out his rhetoric about women and immigrants as discriminatory and sexist. Leaders in technology also have said Trump would be a potential “disaster for innovation” if he won the White House.

Despite the criticism, Thiel has steadily increased his support, including speaking on Trump’s behalf at the Republican National Convention and recently donating $1.25 million to his campaign.

The backlash from tech entrepreneurs and other investors has been fierce with some groups refusing to do business with Thiel and groups he is affiliated with that refuse to sever their ties.

Thiel said has has seen no meaningful impact on his business or the businesses he supports, adding that there are a few people who privately agree with his position. But he said the blowback for supporting Trump has surprised him.

“This didn’t feel contrarian to me,” he said, adding that half the voters in the country appear to agree with him. “It shouldn’t be surprising to see people vote for Bernie Sanders or for Donald Trump, who is the only outsider left in the race.”