A former Covington Catholic High School student at the center of a controversial viral video filmed at the National Mall in January 2019 will speak at the Republican National Convention next week, he tweeted today.
I can’t tell you all enough about how excited I am to be apart of this years RNC! https://t.co/lur4zw1YS8
— Nicholas Sandmann (@N1ckSandmann) August 18, 2020
Nicholas Sandmann was on a school trip to Washington, D.C. for a pro-life march when videos captured him and other students from Covington Catholic in a face-off with Native Americans who were participating in an Indigenous Peoples March.
Those videos, which featured some students whooping and doing the tomahawk chop, went viral, initially drawing ire toward Sandmann — who was shown wearing a red "Make America Great Again" hat, standing across from indigenous marcher Nathan Phillips as the latter beat a small drum — and the other students for harassing the indigenous marchers.
Longer video released later showed a more complicated story, with the marchers approaching the students first.
Sandmann's attorneys filed defamation lawsuits against a number of media outlets that reported the story, including The Washington Post and CNN. Some of those outlets have since settled the suits for undisclosed amounts. Sandmann graduated from Covington Catholic this year.
"I can’t tell you all enough about how excited I am to be apart of this years RNC!" Sandmann tweeted this morning, retweeting an announcement about his appearance posted by an official campaign account for President Donald Trump.
The convention is slated to take place Aug. 24-27 in Charlotte, North Carolina. Republican elected officials and candidates will speak, along with Sandmann and other guests like Patricia and Mark McCloskey, a St. Louis couple who pointed guns at Black Lives Matter protesters who marched through their gated community earlier this year. The McCloskeys have said they were simply protecting their home, while detractors have claimed they may have broken the law by brandishing the handgun and AR-15-style rifle at the marchers.
