Steve King says he drank from toilet at detention center

Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) drank from a water fountain attached to a toilet in a migration detention center, according to a video he shared over Twitter.

“No way was @AOC objectively honest in her #FakeNews spin about the border. Click bait for Snowflakes!,” he said in the tweet with the video.

Hello Maura: Thank you for covering my town hall, attended by 103 people, in Eagle Grove today. I hope you will include this video in NBC’s coverage. No way was @AOC objectively honest in her #FakeNews spin about the border. Click bait for Snowflakes! https://t.co/2mWRoxv1uW pic.twitter.com/B0kD3N5Vmj

— Steve King (@SteveKingIA) September 4, 2019

King’s comments appeared to be in reference to an account by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who said that she was told by detainees that they were specifically told that the water fountains were broken and that personnel suggested they drink from the toilet bowl instead.

King had earlier recounted the incident at a town hall Wednesday in the town of Eagle Grove in Iowa.

“I actually went into that cell where it was reported that [migrants] were advised they had to drink out of the toilet. I took a drink out of there. And actually pretty good!” King says in a clip from the town hall.

{mosads}“There’s these toilets in these prisons [that] are stainless steel. They’re built so that they are semi-indestructible by the inmates that are there and in the back where the lid would be on our toilet, that’s also sealed,” King added. “It’s not drinking out of the toilet, it’s drinking out of the water fountain that’s integral with the back of the toilet.”

The Iowa congressman’s inflammatory comments, including questioning why the term “white nationalist” should be considered negative and suggesting that most modern humans only exist as a result of rape or incest, have largely alienated him from institutional support within the GOP, which has stripped him of his committee memberships.

— Updated at 5:45 p.m.