High school student Nick Sandmann said that he would like to speak with the Native American protester he was pictured standing in front of and smiling over the weekend.
“I respect him, I’d like to talk to him,” Sandmann, a Covington Catholic High School student, told “Today” in an interview that will air Wednesday morning, referring to Omaha Nation leader and veteran Nathan Phillips.
“Do you feel from this experience that you owe anybody an apology? Do you see your own fault in any way?”
Tune in to @NBCNightlyNews for a preview of @SavannahGuthrie‘s interview with Nick Sandmann. Full interview tomorrow on TODAY. pic.twitter.com/7Croh0Toyj
— TODAY (@TODAYshow) January 22, 2019
A video of the teenager and Phillips went viral over the weekend and ignited a discussion over which party was in the wrong.
Initially, reports and video of the confrontation showed Sandmann and some other students of the private, religious, all-boys high school in Kentucky — some wearing “Make America Great Again” hats — surrounding Phillips, who was participating in the Indigenous Peoples March, mocking and intimidating them.
Later, a video from a different angle appeared to show Phillips, banging on his drum, walk up to the group of boys.
Sandmann and his school were attacked on social media.
“As far as standing there, I have every right to do so,” Sandmann told Today when asked if he felt he was at fault. “My position is that I was not disrespectful of Mr. Phillips.”
Sandmann added that he wished he and his classmates would have walked away from the situation and avoided all the backlash.
Phillips walked back on his previous statement that he did not want to meet with Sandmann and other students from Covington Catholic, who were in Washington, D.C., over the weekend to attend the anti-abortion March for Life.
Instead, he believes that this could be a teachable moment about tolerance.
“I have read the statement from Nick Sandmann, the student who stared at me for a long time. He did not apologize, and I believe there are intentional falsehoods in his testimony,” Phillips told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “But I have faith that human beings can use a moment like this to find a way to gain understanding from one another.”
“So, let’s create space for the teaching of tolerance to happen.”
