The Daily - The Confrontation at the Lincoln Memorial

Episode Date: January 23, 2019

Over the course of three days, the narrative of an encounter between young men wearing “Make America Great Again” hats and a Native American veteran has become 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? Guest: Elizabeth Dias, who covers faith and politics for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

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 23rd. In Covington, Kentucky, everything was normal on Friday night. The Covington Catholic High School boys had their big game against the St. Xavier Bombers in basketball. Elizabeth Dias covers religion for The Times. And they lost the game, and it was a big upset because Covecath ended up losing 55 to 45. And for Covecath, 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. Kentucky was thrust into the middle of a fiery national debate on everything from racism to white privilege to the president. So Elizabeth, how does this story explode over the weekend?

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. day off of class so that people can go and protest. 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 people's march. 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. not white man. 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. The white boy is not moving and this older Native American man continues to drum. It was like, here's 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. Almost immediately, media outlets from the entire political spectrum, from the right to the left, condemned this video. 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. Everyone was pointing out, like, look how disrespectful these kids are being, doing these tears 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. 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 as a signal of how common decency has decayed under this administration. Heartbreaking. And the immediate narrative seemed to all make sense. And at this point, the Diocese 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. 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 boys' behavior very seriously and would consider the necessary punishment up to and including expulsion. It represented a behavior and an attitude that certainly does not reflect the values that we here in Covington, Kentucky, have and promote. But then what happens? We are here to tell you to wake up 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.

Before you started worshiping totem poles, you was worshiping the true living God. That's right. Before you became an idol worshiper, you was worshiping the true and living God. And this is the reason why this land was taken away from you. 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.

They're rebel rousers. They're rebel rousers. The most high God, his name is Jehovah. You're not supposed to worship eagles, buffaloes, clams, all types of animals. That's right. This is the reason why the Lord took away your land. Why am I so angry? Give me Proverbs 7 and 7.

And they're, you know, going after the boys. You can't touch us if you wanted to. And instigating conflict between them. Oh, sister! 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. Wow.

Look at this fool, y'all. Get no more than one person. He said, he ruled out. Look at this. So the whole thing becomes much more layered. Everyone starts picking sides. And on the right... 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 Sandman's fellow students were yelling, build that wall. But so far, there is no evidence of those claims. The narrative started to change to look at this, all the boys are absolved of any wrongdoing. 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 Sandman and Covington Catholic students were treated unfairly with early judgments proving out to be false, smeared by the media. 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. Right. The entire encounter becomes basically this Rorschach test for the country. People see exactly what they want to see. It's a 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?

With MAGA hats, white kids. You had the perfect victim, Catholic, at a pro-life. Perfect law and order suspect, right? You know, they just needed to have super rich parents who are 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, OK, what let's let's look at really what happened here.

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. So what happens with a story like that? It's too good to check. And between this story and the BuzzFeed story, the media is in worse shape than my liver after spring break. I don't know how you're going to come back from this because it's so bad. Isn't 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? Cuz we're desperate to get Trump out of office. I think that that's the reason. I think the

press jumps the gun a lot because we have so much circumstantial evidence against this guy that we basically are hoping that Cohen's got the goods and what have you. And so it's wishful thinking. Well, Elizabeth, you report on religion for the time. So why did it come to be that you were trying to make sense of what happened at the Lincoln Memorial? Well, whenever there's an event that catches the nation's attention,

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? And how did you do that? 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, 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, 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 Covecath 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 Covecath, 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 a man who was really angry with the priests and with the bishop. And, you know, he pulled one of the priests aside and said, how dare the bishop apologize for the student's behavior with that first statement that the diocese and the school did. 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. Yes. I mean, and the dad told me, we trust the school and we trust the diocese that they will protect their flock. And what do you think he meant by that, protect their flock? 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 Cuff-Caff kids, and 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? 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

Cuff 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. 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. 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, in fact, maybe even a good thing for a community to circle around its own members when they feel they're being attacked?

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? What's so interesting about the coverage of Friday's videos was how much of it mentioned 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 was called for them to be destroyed on the basis they have too much privilege. And so for the people of Kovkath and the Catholic community there in northern Kentucky, the aggressor is the big, bad liberal media. 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 efforts wouldn't dox you in a heartbeat, think again. The left that is determined to attack President Trump and conservative politics and policies and ideals and traditions as much as possible. To attack the white male identity. Yes, to attack the white male identity.

And then on the other side... 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. 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. 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? Right. Nuance disappears and the realities that different communities face disappear. Everyone has their own community and their ideas about, you know, how to 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. Elizabeth, thank you very much. Thanks so much, Michael. On Tuesday, President Trump expressed support for the students at Covington Catholic High School, writing on Twitter, quote, The students of Covington have become symbols of fake news and how evil it can be. They have captivated the attention of the world, he wrote, and I know they will use We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today. We'll be right back. And Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said they would put forward two competing bills to reopen the government that will be voted on tomorrow. All that needs to happen is for our Democratic friends to agree that it's time to put the country ahead of politics, take yes for an answer, and vote to put the standoff behind us.

One bill, backed by President Trump and Republicans, would include $5.7 billion for Trump's proposed border wall in exchange for temporary protection for undocumented immigrants, including DREAMers protected by DACA. In exchange for the wall, the president offers only limited temporary protections for DACA and TPS, protections he single-handedly removed. So it's sort of like bargaining for stolen goods. I hope it will roundly be defeated on Thursday. The other bill, backed by Democrats, would simply fund the government for several weeks without providing money for a border wall. People are saying, isn't there a way out of this mess? Isn't there a way to get government services open first

and then debate what we should do for border security? Well, now there's a way. Neither bill is expected to win enough votes to pass, but the Times reports that they could usher in a more collaborative tone and eventually lead to a bipartisan compromise that would end the shutdown. And the Supreme Court on Tuesday revived the Trump administration's ban on transgender people in the military, saying it could go into effect while several cases challenging

it move to the lower courts. Act, while several cases challenging it move to the lower courts. The 5-4 decision was a victory for the Trump administration and means the policy, which has been widely denounced by advocates for transgender rights and championed by religious conservatives, will likely be in effect until at least 2020. A few hours later, the Supreme Court handed the president a defeat by taking no action on DACA, which Trump has tried to revoke, but which has been kept in place by federal courts. The president wants the Supreme Court to overturn those court rulings and is seeking to use DACA as leverage in his negotiations with Democrats over the government shutdown. The high court's silence on the matter almost certainly means Trump will not be able to end DACA this year, as he had hoped, or use the fate of those it protects to end the shutdown. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro.

See you tomorrow.