This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Donald Trump has defended a group of high school students who were filmed apparently confronting a Native American activist and military veteran. In a tweet on Tuesday, the president said the students “have become symbols of fake news”. He also suggested the students will use their experience “to bring people together”.

New video sheds more light on students' confrontation with Native American Read more

Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said the White House had reached out to the Kentucky students and “voiced our support”. Amid reports the president could invite the students to the White House, she said if the president did so it would be sometime after the shutdown has concluded.

The students from the Covington Catholic high school, in northern Kentucky, were filmed appearing to mock a group of Native Americans taking part in the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington DC last Friday. The student at the centre of the footage, Nick Sandmann, later said he was confronted by one Native American activist.

The first footage of the incident to be widely circulated showed a group of students, many wearing red “Make America Great Again” Trump hats, shouting and seemingly encircling the Native American group. One of the teens, later identified as Sandmann, stood inches from Nathan Phillips, an Omaha tribe elder, seeming to smirk as Phillips chanted and played a drum.

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“Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good – maybe even to bring people together.

“It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!”

The president also addressed the subject on Monday, apparently while watching a discussion on Fox News.

The students were in DC to attend the March for Life, an anti-abortion rally. The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic high school apologized for their behavior.

“We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, DC,” the organizations said in a statement. “We extend our deepest apologies to Mr Phillips. This behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”

Phillips, a Vietnam-era veteran, told the Detroit Free Press he was trying to maintain calm between the predominantly white students and several members of another group, of Black Hebrew Israelites, before the video was shot. According to Phillips, the students came over to watch the Black Hebrew Israelites and were offended by their comments. Tensions mounted as the high school group swelled to approximately 100.

“They were in the process of attacking these four black individuals,” Phillips claimed. “So I put myself in between that, between a rock and hard place.”

Phillips told the paper some of the four Black Hebrew Israelite members present said “some harsh things” and that one spat toward the Catholic students.

In a statement on Sunday, Sandmann insisted he was trying to be the peacemaker.

“When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,” Sandmann said in the statement published by WKRC, a local media outlet. “I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group … They called us ‘racists’, ‘bigots’, ‘white crackers’, ‘faggots’ and ‘incest kids’.”

Several minutes later, Sandmann said, a group of Native Americans, including Phillips, approached.

“He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face,” Sandmann claimed.

Though other videos have emerged that show different views of the incident, the first video prompted outrage in all corners of the American political landscape.

Among Democrats, Deb Haaland of New Mexico, who was among the first Native American women elected to Congress last year, condemned the students’ actions as a “display of blatant hate, disrespect, and intolerance”.

Kentucky’s Democratic secretary of state, Alison Lundergan Grimes, wrote on Facebook: “I refuse to shame and solely blame these children for this type of behavior.

“Instead, I turn to the adults and administration that are charged with teaching them, and to those who are silently letting others promote this behavior.”