michael barbaro

From The New York Times, I’m Michael Barbaro. This is “The Daily.” Today — over the course of three days, the narrative has gone from a young man in a “MAGA” hat harassing an older Native American veteran to a pick-your-side story where who holds power and who’s at fault are all up for debate. What can actually be said about what happened on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial? It’s Wednesday, January 21st.

elizabeth dias

In Covington, Kentucky, everything was normal on Friday night. [CHANTING] The Covington Catholic high school boys had their big game against the St. Xavier Bombers in basketball.

michael barbaro

Elizabeth Dias covers religion for The Times.

elizabeth dias

And they lost the game, and it was a big upset because Cov Cath ended up losing 55 to 45. And for Cov Cath, sports is everything. I mean, their identity is wrapped in state championship titles and the all-male brotherhood of this Catholic school. That’s what they’re really known for. But the next day, the whole conversation changed. And that school in northern Kentucky was thrust into the middle of a fiery national debate on everything from racism to white privilege to the president.

michael barbaro

So Elizabeth, how does this story explode over the weekend?

elizabeth dias

Everyone first heard of this when a video popped up online on social media, and quickly was being shared because it showed this group of teenage white boys who’d been in Washington, D.C., for the March for Life, an annual protest against abortion in America. It’s very common for Catholic schools across the country to send busloads of kids. Sometimes they give them the day off of class so that people can go and protest.

archived recording

A group of teenagers, some Catholic high school students, seen wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, appearing to face off with Nathan Phillips, a 65-year-old Native American as he pounds his drum near the Lincoln Memorial during an Indigenous Peoples March.

elizabeth dias

And you have this image that the world sees of an older Native American man drumming and a young white boy from this Catholic high school, wearing a bright red “Make America Great Again” hat, who appeared to be asserting his dominance over this older, not-white man.

archived recording (nathan phillips)

When I was there and I was standing there and I seen that group of people in front of me, and I seen the angry faces and all of that, I realized I had put myself in a really dangerous situation, you know.

elizabeth dias

The white boy is not moving, and this older Native American man continues to drum.

archived recording (nathan phillips)

It was like, here is a group of people who were angry at somebody else, and I put myself in front of that. And all of a sudden, I’m the one who’s — all that anger and all that wanting to have the freedom to just rip me apart, you know, that was scary.

elizabeth dias

Almost immediately, media outlets from the entire political spectrum, from the right to the left, condemned this video.

archived recording

Now to the outrage over a video showing an encounter between teenagers and a Native American veteran near the Lincoln Memorial. This video has sparked outrage toward Covington Catholic High School.

elizabeth dias

Everyone was pointing out, like, “Look how disrespectful these kids are being, doing these cheers or mocking Native American communities. And look at this entitlement of these young kids who are on this field trip to D.C. Look at this racist behavior from these kids.”

archived recording

Newly elected congresswoman Deb Haaland is among the first Native Americans elected to Congress, and she reacted on Twitter, writing, “This veteran put his life on the line for our country. The students display a blatant hate, disrespect and intolerance. It’s a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration. Heartbreaking.”

elizabeth dias

And the immediate narratives seem to all make sense. And at this point —

archived recording

The dioceses of Covington issued a statement saying, quote, “We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically. This behavior is opposed to the church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”

elizabeth dias

Fox News and even the boys’ school and their diocese, the Catholic Church leadership in the area, was condemning the boys’ behavior. I mean, the school and the diocese issued a statement at first saying that they were taking the boy’s behavior very seriously and would consider the necessary punishment, up to and including expulsion.

archived recording

It represented a behavior and an attitude that certainly does not reflect the values that we here in Covington, Kentucky have and promote.

michael barbaro

But then what happens?

archived recording

We are here to tell you to wake up to the four corners of the Earth.

elizabeth dias

Well, then all these new videos start to appear, and some of them are longer, and you see different angles of all these encounters from different people’s cell phones. And the whole thing gets more complicated because there are new people involved. There’s this small group of African-American men who identify with the Hebrew Israelites.

archived recording

Before you started worshipping totem poles, you was worshipping the true living God. That’s right. Before you become an idol worshipper, you was worshipping the true and living God. And this is the reason why this land was taken away from you.

elizabeth dias

It’s the type of thing that in Washington, you know, you might see them on a street corner preaching something, and most people walk by, because it doesn’t make a lot of sense.

michael barbaro

They’re rabble-rousers.

elizabeth dias

Yeah, they’re rabble-rousers.

archived recording

The most high God, his name is Jehovah. You’re not supposed to worship eagles, buffaloes. That’s right. Rams. Right. All types of animals. That’s right. This is the reason why the Lord took away your land. Why are you so angry? Why am I so angry? Give me your Proverbs 7:7.

elizabeth dias

And they’re, you know, going after the boys —

archived recording

They touch us if you wanted to.

elizabeth dias

And instigating conflict between them. [CROWD NOISE] And at one point, one of them, you know, starts bringing up the N-word and says to the kids, you know, “You only have one N-word in your group.” And then you see one of the kids, like, turn around and flash two fingers and say, “We got two.”

michael barbaro

Wow.

archived recording

Look at this fool here. [CHANTING] Look at his head.

elizabeth dias

So the whole thing becomes much more layered. Everyone starts picking sides. And on the right —

archived recording

Overnight, new video calling into question just how this encounter began. They say Phillips forced his way into the center of their group. Phillips telling ABC News he still believes he was the victim. He initially told the media that Sandmann’s fellow students were yelling, “Build that wall.” But so far there is no evidence of those claims.

elizabeth dias

The narrative started to change to, look at this. All of the boys are absolved of any wrongdoing.

archived recording

A chaperone who was on the trip says students were targeted for wearing “MAGA” hats and describes what happened. I think that was one of the reasons they were targeted, and I think they were also targeted for what they stood for, which is Christianity. The president tweeting, “Looking like Nick Sandmann and Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgments proving out to be false, smeared by the media.”

michael barbaro

So suddenly there are so many complicated details to all these interactions here that you can sort of see what you want to see in whatever angle and version you’re looking at.

elizabeth dias

Right. The entire encounter becomes basically this Rorschach test for the country. People see exactly what they want to see.

archived recording

The kid with a red hat, who looks like he has a smirk on his face, so he must be a racist. This was a left-wing fantasy. You had the perfect villains, right? Yep. With “MAGA” hats, white kids. You had the perfect — Catholic. Catholic at a pro-life — perfect law and order suspect, right? You know. They just needed to have super-rich parents who were architects. And then you had the perfect victim, Native American, Vietnam vet. And it’s almost, Glenn, the kind of profiling that the left accuses police of doing regularly. But they’re doing it. Like, everybody’s profiling each other, like snap judgments, without taking a breath, without saying, O.K., let’s look at really what happened here.

elizabeth dias

They identify with the characters in this video that most align with them and with the narrative that seems to fit with their political or cultural identity.

archived recording

So what happens with a story like that, it’s too good to check. And between this story and the BuzzFeed story, the media’s in worse shape than my liver after spring break. I don’t know how you’re going to come back from this. Pretty bad. Because it’s so bad. Is it that we just instantly say, “That’s what it is,” based on what we see in that moment, and then have to walk stuff back when it turns out we’re wrong? Why is that? Why do we keep making the same mistake? Because we’re desperate to get Trump out of office. [LAUGHING] I think that that’s the reason. I think our press jumps the gun a lot because we just — we have so much circumstantial evidence against this guy that we basically are hoping that, you know, Cohen’s got the goods, and what have you. And so it’s wishful thinking.

michael barbaro

Well, Elizabeth, you report on religion for The Times. So why did it come to be that you were trying to make sense of what happened at the Lincoln Memorial?

elizabeth dias

Well, whenever there is an event that catches the nation’s attention on anything related to religion, that’s where I want to be. Like, that’s the story that I want to dig into and better understand the context for this, and the religious and kind of cultural and political underpinnings around, in this case, this group of Catholic students. And for me it was especially interesting because the last time that the country was really fixated on a Catholic high school and Catholic high school boys was during the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. And so now that that same demographic of kid was in the news again, I wanted to better understand the Catholic school environment that they’re coming from in northern Kentucky. You know, why were they there to march in the March for Life and in this kind of conflict to begin with?

michael barbaro

And how did you do that?

elizabeth dias

So I got on a plane on Sunday morning and flew from D.C. to Covington, Kentucky. And I landed in Covington and drove straight to the school. It’s not very far from the airport. You go down the Dixie Highway, on a sloping hill towards the Ohio River. And on the left, as I was approaching, there’s Covington Catholic High School. And you know, it’s the kind of place where when they say the Pledge of Allegiance, they actually change the end so it says, “With liberty and justice for all, born and unborn.” In other words, this is a very conservative Catholic community, and those values are really instilled in the young men at the school. I spoke with one parent, a dad of one of the kids who was actually at the March for Life, was in the scene at the Mall, and he immediately used an expletive with me to describe what he thought was really unfair coverage by the media of the incident. And he said, you know, “It should be reported how great these young men did in the face of these protesters who were trying to bait them.” Things like, “The left has an agenda, and facts don’t really matter to them if it goes against their agenda.” So it was very clear that for the immediate community of parents and Cov Cath students, they were under attack, and they felt like they were under siege. Then that evening, I went to Mass at the basilica in Covington, which is the main church for the Catholics in that area. It’s where the bishop is. And during the Mass, the priests talked about the importance of the March for Life and fighting abortion rights. And then at the end, one of the priests got up and made a short announcement, saying, you know, “I’m sure everyone’s heard what’s going on at Cov Cath, and please pray. Please pray for the community. Please pray that the truth will become known. It’s really hard when you see your loved ones up in the media. And we trust that God will work all of this out.” And on the way out of Mass, there was the man who was really angry with the priests and with the bishop. And he pulled one of the priests aside and said, “How dare the bishop apologize for the students’ behavior with that first statement that the dioceses and the school did?”

michael barbaro

So even though ultimately, the Catholic diocese there was at this Mass, speaking about protecting these boys, these members of the community and this man in particular felt that the church had betrayed these families and this town by ever questioning them in the first place.

elizabeth dias

Yes. And the dad told me, “We trust the school and we trust the dioceses that they will protect their flock.”

michael barbaro

And what do you think he meant by that — “protect their flock“?

elizabeth dias

As a religion reporter I hear that phrase, “protect the flock,” and it reminds me of everything else going on in America right now with religious conservatives and this broader idea that white Christians seem to feel under attack, right? And that they’ve needed a defender, which really has become President Trump. And so in Covington, with the Cov Cath kids — you know, this isn’t about President Trump, right? I mean, all that they’re doing is wearing the “Make America Great Again” hats. But it is about who protects you and who will be your champion when you feel under attack? And how do you band together to defend your traditions?

michael barbaro

It’s fascinating, Elizabeth, that you were drawn to this story with the Brett Kavanaugh story in mind. Because hearing this all reminds me of a story that I haven’t been able to forget that The Times published following Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a Supreme Court justice. He actually returned to his alma mater, Georgetown Prep, an all-boys high school, Catholic, like Cov Catholic, for an alumni event. I think it was a homecoming football game. And when he got there, he was applauded and treated as kind of a heroic figure by the current students and their parents, by the school. And he’s described as being sort of engulfed at this event by his former classmates, these very same men whose names had come up over and over again as witnesses and character testimonials during the confirmation hearing — Tobin, Timmy. And when you talk about this visual of “protecting the flock,” it feels to me kind of like the same image.

elizabeth dias

It does. It’s almost like there’s this transition from villain to hero. I mean, that’s what’s happening at Covington right now, I think. Covington Catholic is pretty similar to Georgetown Prep, except maybe it’s not known in quite the same elite way. It’s a bit more suburban, maybe the families aren’t quite as wealthy. But that brotherhood and that cultural pride of, you know, sticking with your brother in the midst of distress and outsider attacks — that’s very similar to what’s going on on the ground right now.

michael barbaro

But isn’t the notion of protecting the flock, isn’t that kind of true of any community in the country? Isn’t that in some ways —

elizabeth dias

Yeah.

michael barbaro

In fact maybe even a good thing for a community to circle around its own members when they feel they’re being attacked.

elizabeth dias

Of course it is. And so what’s so interesting is it now becomes the question of, well, which of those groups have power, and which of those groups need protecting?

archived recording

What’s so interesting about the coverage of Friday’s videos was how much of it mentions something called “privilege.” What’s so fascinating about all of these attacks is how inverted they are. These are high school kids from Kentucky. They’re far less privileged, in fact, than virtually everyone who has called for them to be destroyed on the basis that they have too much privilege.

elizabeth dias

And so for the people of Cov Cath and the Catholic community there in northern Kentucky, the aggressor is the big, bad liberal media.

archived recording

And the media don’t pause for a moment before casting judgment. CNN legal analyst Bakari Sellers suggested one of the boys should be, quote, “punched in the face.” Longtime CNN contributor Kathy Griffin seemed to encourage a mob to rise up and hurt these boys — quote, “Name these kids. I want names. Shame them. If you think these f’ers wouldn’t dox you in a heartbeat, think again.”

elizabeth dias

The left that is determined to attack President Trump and conservative politics and policies and ideals and traditions as much as possible.

michael barbaro

To attack the white male identity.

elizabeth dias

Yes, to attack the white male identity. And then on the other side —

archived recording

So a high school in Kentucky took a field trip to Washington, D.C., and in the middle of it decided to take a racist detour to the Indigenous Peoples March.

elizabeth dias

People say, “Well, wait a minute, is there any better example of white Christian power in America right now than President Trump’s election?” And so both sides genuinely believe that their side should have power, that they don’t, and that the other side is trying to rob them of their power.

michael barbaro

And in that case, the outcome seems kind of preordained. Everybody will go to their corner, they will be angry, and no one will have a meaningful conversation about, say, what happened on the steps of the monument in Washington.

elizabeth dias

Right. Nuance disappears, and the realities that different communities face disappear. Everyone has their own community and their ideas about how to protect your own flock. And so what happens is when communities become so busy protecting their own flock, the facts about the situation or the more unseemly parts of it that are harder to confront for either side, those become obscured.

michael barbaro

Elizabeth, thank you very much.

elizabeth dias

Thanks so much, Michael.

michael barbaro