Two Kentucky Republicans in Congress are backing students from Covington Catholic High School after people accused them of taunting a Native American protester, and then walked those charges back when videos showed the protester approached the students.
Rep. Thomas Massie tweeted late Monday that he was “uncomfortable” after an initial video emerged from the alleged confrontation. But he said later videos showed people jumped too quickly to conclusions.
“I’ve now watched over an hour of other videos from 4 different cameras of the incident in front of the Lincoln Memorial. I urge everyone to watch the other videos before passing judgment,” Massie wrote. “Would you have remained that composed at that age under those circumstances?”
“In the face of racist and homosexual slurs, the young boys refused to reciprocate or disrespect anyone,” he continued. “Even when taunted by homophobic bigots, which was obviously bewildering to them, they insulted no one.”
Massie, who has Covington in his district, said the parents of the students should be “proud, not ashamed, of their kids’ behavior.”
(5/5) In the context of everything that was going on (which the media hasn’t shown) the parents and mentors of these boys should be proud, not ashamed, of their kids’ behavior. It is my honor to represent them.
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) January 20, 2019
Sen. Rand Paul agreed with Massie and said everyone should be less quick to condemn these events until all the facts are in.
“I urge everyone to stop going after people online with very little information, but rather carefully consider the facts here. These kids are taking all sorts of abuse they do not deserve,” Paul wrote while retweeting Massie’s thread on the situation.
Please see this thread from my friend and the Congressman representing Covington, Kentucky. I urge everyone to stop going after people online with very little information, but rather carefully consider the facts here. These kids are taking all sorts of abuse they do not deserve. https://t.co/y8VgRysjiN
— Senator Rand Paul (@RandPaul) January 21, 2019
Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., the lone Democrat in the Kentucky delegation, has not commented on the situation since more videos of the confrontation emerged. The videos showed that the students and the Native American protesters were on the receiving end of barbs from a group of Black Hebrew Israelites, but that the students did not escalate the situation.
Before other videos surfaced, Yarmuth said the conduct by the students was “beyond appalling.”
“I am calling for a total and complete shutdown of teenagers wearing MAGA hats until we can figure out what is going on. They seem to be poisoning young minds,” he said, an apparent joke made in reference to Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S. back in 2015.
“The conduct we saw in this video is beyond appalling, but it didn’t happen in a vacuum. This is a direct result of the racist hatred displayed daily by the President of the United States who, sadly, some mistake for a role model,” he said.
As for Trump, he backed the students in a pair of tweets Monday and Tuesday, saying they had become “symbols of Fake News.”
