Covington Catholic Students Wrongly Vilified? Trump Quotes Tucker Carlson, Blames Media

President Donald Trump weighed in on the Covington Catholic school controversy after a 106-minute-long video of the event and a statement from one of the students involved shed new light into what happened on Friday in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. Students of the high school in Park Hills, Kentucky, were seen in several videos appearing to be in a standoff with an elderly Native American man, causing nationwide outrage.

However, an extended video of the event released Sunday presented the episode with a different angle, showing that the teens, wearing “Make America Great Again” hats, did not appear to be harassing the Native American man, identified as 64-year-old Vietnam War vet Nathan Phillips.

"Looking like Nick Sandman(n) & Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgements proving out to be false - smeared by media. Not good, but making big comeback! 'New footage shows that media was wrong about teen’s encounter with Native American' @TuckerCarlson," Trump tweeted, before referring to a topic of discussion on Fox News host Tucker Carlson's show.

On Monday, Carlson addressed the media’s quick trigger in prematurely vilifying the Catholic students.

“The full video of what happened on Friday in Washington is well over an hour long. The four minutes that made Twitter don’t tell the story but, instead, distort the story. A longer look shows that the boys from Covington Catholic in Kentucky were not a roving mob looking for a fight,” Carlson noted during his show.

“Members of a group called the Black Hebrew Israelites, that’s a black supremacist organization, began taunting them with racial epitaphs and then Nathan Phillips, the now famous American Indian activist approached them pounding on his drum,” he continued. “The footage seems to suggest the boys were unsure of whether Phillips was hostile or taking their side against the Black Hebrew Israelites.”

The shorter videos that surfaced over the weekend made people believe the white students were harassing Phillips, who was part of the Indigenous Peoples March.

Phillips spoke to the Washington Post about the incident saying he felt threatened by the teens: “It was getting ugly, and I was thinking, ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song.’” He accused one of the students, junior Nick Sandmann, of blocking his way and refusing to let him pass. The former marine also claimed he heard the students chant "build that wall."

Sandmann’s own diocese criticized his actions, saying “this behavior is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.” The students' school and local archdiocese condemned the boys and apologized to Phillips over the weekend.

"When we arrived, we noticed four African American protestors who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. I am not sure what they were protesting, and I did not interact with them. I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group," Sandmann said in his statement. "The protestors said hateful things. They called us 'racists,' 'bigots,' 'white crackers,' 'faggots,' and 'incest kids.' They also taunted an African American student from my school by telling him that we would 'harvest his organs.' I have no idea what that insult means, but it was startling to hear."

Since Sunday, several people have deleted tweets and other statements made on social media blasting the students. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) also defended the students.

“The honorable and tolerant students of Covington Catholic School came to DC to advocate for the unborn and to learn about our nation’s capital. What they got was a brutal lesson in the unjust court of public opinion and social media mobs,” tweeted Massie.

March for Life organizers on Sunday said, just one day after calling the students’ behavior “reprehensible,” that: “It is clear from new footage and additional accounts that there is more to this story than the original video captured.”

A GQ writer who had called for doxxing the Covington Catholic High School students involved in the confrontation said he regrets a now-deleted tweet.

"It was an irresponsible and stupid tweet that happened in the heat of the moment because I was upset. It partly came from having been doxxed by MAGA people myself but that’s no excuse and no one should wish that on anybody else. It’s counterproductive to say anything along those lines and if you make yourself look like an irrational, mean idiot you’re playing right into their hands," GQ’s Nathaniel Friedman said in a statement to the Wrap.