Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., on Monday offered a tongue-in-cheek apology to “tarantula-Americans” for suggesting that the big, hairy spiders known as tarantulas spin webs.

“I think of a spider web with a tarantula in the middle, and the tarantula, in my view, is Vladimir Putin,” she said in a hearing about Russia’s influence on the U.S. election.