Iowa Rep. Steve King hosted a town hall on Wednesday and told attendees about visiting the migrant detention centers at the border. During that story, he mentioned that he drank out of the water fountains that are attached to the toilets.
If you remember, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez visited the detention centers earlier this year and claimed migrants were being forced to drink toilet water. It caused a huge stir, even though her accusations could not be verified.
At today’s town hall in Eagle Grove, @SteveKingIA told a story about how he drank from a toilet at a migrant facility on the border when he last visited: “actually pretty good” pic.twitter.com/JbZ5tyNzux
— Maura Barrett (@MauraBarrettNBC) September 4, 2019
So King thought he’d pay a visit to the border himself and test out the water. After the reporter covering the town hall meeting wrote about his story, King decided to release a video of himself drinking the water.
“I went to the cell where it was alleged that the inmates in there were told that they had to drink out of the toilet,” King said. “So I went and took that drink that was the recommendation that was there and I’ve got pictures of it. You can see them. There was a stainless steel flush toilet, the back tank of the toilet and on the back tank of the toilet is a drinking fountain.”
In the video, King says the water is “not bad.”
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
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was not amused and responded to the video by tweeting, “There is a genre of videos where GOP House members – who clearly didn’t read sworn testimony that detention sinks were broken- filming themselves drinking out of toilet sinks. They’re so anti-immigrant they risk pink eye to show off that they didn’t do the reading #CloseTheCamps”
There is a genre of videos where GOP House members – who clearly didn’t read sworn testimony that detention sinks were broken- filming themselves drinking out of toilet sinks.
They’re so anti-immigrant they risk pink eye to show off that they didn’t do the reading #CloseTheCamps https://t.co/uYLxQqxSej
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) September 5, 2019