At RNC, Teen From Video of Protest Slams ‘Media War Machine’

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Kentucky teenager known for video that appeared to depict his tense interaction with a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial last year says the “full war machine of the mainstream media revved up into attack mode” against him.

Nicholas Sandmann told the virtual Republican National Convention on Tuesday that news outlets seeking to advance “their anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-Donald Trump narrative was all that mattered.”

Sandmann was among the high school students who participated in a 2019 anti-abortion march in Washington.

They later encountered separate Native American rights demonstrators, and video showed Sandmann standing close to one of them, Nathan Phillips.

Despite early perceptions, both later said they were trying to defuse tensions.