Two Oklahoma state lawmakers were caught on a live mic Monday joking about sexual predation.
According to Oklahoma City CBS affiliate KWTV, which captured the exchange, the conversation took place minutes before a press conference by Gov. Kevin Stitt (R). In the video, Rep. Mark McBride (R) can be overheard asking Rep. Scott Fetgatter (R) whether he molested a female former state lawmaker.
“You molested this girl after Kannady did?” McBride asks, apparently referencing allegations against two other colleagues, Reps. Chris Kannady (R) and Kevin McDugle (R), who are under investigation for sexual assault. According to a conservative blogger, the female lawmaker claimed that the two men “basically got her in a booth and she couldn’t move, and one was showing her a porno video and Kannady supposedly feeling up her leg when all this was going on.”
In response to McBride’s question, Fetgatter jokingly responds, “No, I was at the table and I allowed it.”
“Are you sure it wasn’t a donkey or a goat?” McBride says.
The exchange takes place at around the four-minute mark in the video below:
Neither lawmaker immediately responded to a ThinkProgress inquiry about their comments. According to KWTV, McBride — the Republican assistant floor leader — refused to address the incident.
Fetgatter told the station that his “comments have been taken out of context and were only in response to a question directed toward me.” He said he apologized if his remarks “in any way trivialized the serious nature of sexual assault,” adding, “To be clear I have never seen anything inappropriate happen or sexual harassment occur during my time in the House of Representatives.”
May 20th , 2013 ….. Oklahoma weather you hit like a girl !!!were coming back bigger and better!! # moorestrong, #oklahomastrong ,#mcbride
— Rep Mark McBride (@RepMarkMcBride) May 20, 2014
This is not the first time McBride has found himself at the center of controversy. In 2014, he said mockingly that the weather in the state “hit like a girl.” He also came under fire in 2015, after local affiliate Fox 25 obtained a threatening voicemail he left for a male former employee, who McBride claimed was “badmouthing” his company.
“…I am personally going to make your life miserable,” he said. “You’ve badmouthed my name around. Buddy, you screw with me and I am going to get even and I’m getting even.”
Then-state House Speaker Jeff Hickman ultimately decided not to discipline McBride for leaving the message. “While the approach Mark used to address a personal matter with a former employee of his private business is not how I would have handled it, he is responsible to his constituents, not to me,” he said at the time.