Covington Catholic’s Nick Sandmann on Why He Didn’t Walk Away: ‘Didn’t Want to Be Disrespectful to Mr. Phillips’
The student at the center of a major media controversy from last weekend sat down with the Today show’s Savannah Guthrie for an interview that aired Wednesday morning.
Images and video of a smiling Nick Sandmann standing close to Omaha tribal elder Nathan Phillips, who beat his drum close to the high school student’s face, went viral over the weekend, prompting a backlash. The Covington Catholic High School student presented a composed and thoughtful reaction for someone at the center of the media firestorm.
Guthrie asked “Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own fault in any way?”
Sandmann replied “As far as standing there, I had every right to do so. I don’t — my position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him. I’d like to talk to him. I mean, in hindsight, I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing, but I can’t say that I’m sorry for listening to him and standing there.”
Some have criticized the Covington Catholic Diocese for hiring a PR Firm to help them navigate the media frenzy, and Sandmann, at times, appeared to be super cautious with his words as though he were trying very hard to stay on message in a disciplined manner that a media trainer would insist. He is, however, a teenager, and given what he sees as clearly unjust national attention, Sandmann deserves credit for saying his piece in a calm and cogent manner.
For her part, Guthrie asked the questions that most wanted to be asked, and fairly deftly threaded a needle between “both sides” of this Rorschach Test media event. She did ask why Sandmann didn’t walk away from Phillip, the teenaged student offered that “he didn’t want to be disrespectful to Mr. Phillips,” a response that is sure to be lauded by some, and mocked by others.
Guthrie noted that despite Phillips’ claim of hearing chants of “build that wall,” NBC researchers could find no such evidence in the myriad of smartphone shot videos from the chaotic protest scene. Guthrie also asked about Sandmann’s “Make America Great Again” hats.
Guthrie noted that the hats some students were wearing, Sandmann says he bought his that day from a street vendor in Washington. She asked “Do you think if you weren’t wearing that hat this might not have happened or it might have been different?”
Sandmann answered, “That’s possible, but I would have to assume what Mr. Phillips was thinking, and I’d rather let him speak for why he came up to us.”
“I have the utmost respect for Mr. Phillips,” Sandmann said. “It’s another person that freely used his First Amendment right. And I want to thank him for his military service as well — and I’d certainly like to speak with him.”
Guthrie ended with what it been like to be at the center of this political controversy and cited by President Donald Trump, to which Sandmann expressed appreciation of the president’s tweets — but said he hasn’t loved the attention.
“It’s been terrible,” he said, “People have threatened our lives.”
Watch above via NBC.
