(NBC News via Radio Iowa) — Iowa Congressman Steve King says he drank from a toilet tank at a migrant detention center recently to show the water was safe for drinking. N-B-C News recorded King during a town hall yesterday (Wednesday) in Eagle Grove as he talked about touring detention facilities for asylum-seekers.

Still frame image from NBC video

“I actually went into that cell where it was reported they were advised they had to drink out of the toilet,” King said. “I took a drink out of there and it was actually pretty good, so I have a video tape and I smacked my lips.”

King told the crowd in Eagle Grove he hadn’t posted the video online, to help put complaints about conditions in the detention centers “in the rear view mirror.” But after N-B-C’s reporter posted King’s comments online, King tweeted out the video . He described the system this way in the audio recorded by N-B-C News:

“These toilets in these prisons are solid stainless steel. They’re built so that they are semi-indestructible by the inmates that are there,” King says. “And in the back, where the lid would be on our toilet, that’s also sealed and there’s a water fountain there and you push the button and the water comes out and you take a drink,” King said. “That’s how it is. 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.”

King says he believes a “language barrier” prevented those being held in the cells from understanding the words “potable water” printed on a sign above the tank. A Democrat in congress who visited the detention centers criticized King. She said migrants told her the guards directed them to drink out of the toilet because the water fountain was broken.