Native American activist Nathan Phillips says he forgives ‘MAGA’ teen

Article via NYPost

Native American activist Nathan Phillips, whose face-off with a Kentucky Catholic school student was caught in a controversial viral video, said in a new interview that he forgives the 16-year-old.

“Even though I’m angry, I still have that forgiveness in my heart for those students,” the 64-year-old Omaha Nation elder told NBC’s “Today” show on Thursday.

“I forgive him,” Phillips said of Nick Sandmann, the Covington Catholic High School student who stood toe to toe with Phillips while wearing a cap emblazoned with President Trump’s slogan, “Make America Great Again,” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC.

Phillips said he was disappointed at first by statements Sandmann released after videos of the incident went viral.

“Insincerity, lack of responsibility. Those are the words I came up with,” said Phillips, who took part in an Indigenous People’s March shortly before the fateful confrontation.

Phillips added that after praying about the episode he “woke up with this forgiving heart. I forgive him.”

Sandmann has said that he and his classmates, who were in DC to attend an anti-abortion rally, were confronted by several Hebrew Israelites who began hurling slurs at the group.

Phillips said he started to beat a hand drum in an effort to defuse the “explosive” situation when he was met by Sandmann, who had what critics have described as a smug smirk on his face.

The boy has said he was merely smiling and meant no disrespect.

Phillips said he was “trying to walk away” and heard the kids chanting, “Build that wall!”

“That mass of young men surrounded me and the folks that were with me,” Phillips said, adding that when he did finally find a path to walk through the “clear space, a person was there. I was blocked.”

Sandmann has said that a school chaperone gave the students permission to shout chants at the Hebrew Israelites, but Phillips said Thursday he thinks chaperones “should have said to those students, ‘This isn’t the place.’”

Still, “forgiveness even goes to those chaperones, those teachers,” he said.

Phillips said he believed the students were “mocking” Native Americans, and that Sandmann “was the leader of that.”

On Wednesday, Sandmann — whose family quickly hired a PR firm — went on “Today” and said his school doesn’t “tolerate racism, and none of my classmates are racist people.”

The school was closed Tuesday “due to threats of violence,” but reopened Wednesday amid heightened security.

Sandmann has said that some students have received death threats. Phillips said he also has also received threats.

“You know, I didn’t have any problems until the students started saying they were getting death threats, and then as soon as that happened, it started happening with me,” Phillips said.

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Phillips also clarified Thursday that he was a US Marines reservist during the Vietnam War, but didn’t actually serve in Vietnam.