Past hoax · Filed Oct 16, 2026
Covington KKKids Hoax
Covington Catholic students in MAGA hats surrounded and mocked a Native American elder.
The claim
Covington Catholic students in MAGA hats surrounded and mocked a Native American elder.
What it was
A longer video showed the students being taunted first, and the elder walking into them. CNN settled with Nick Sandmann.
Timeline
Jan 18, 2019
A short clip shows Nick Sandmann, in a MAGA hat, face to face with Nathan Phillips at the Lincoln Memorial.
That weekend
The students are described as a mob mocking a Native elder. CNN runs it that way.
The longer tape
Black Hebrew Israelites had been taunting the students. Phillips walked into them.
Jan 2020
CNN settles Sandmann’s suit. The Post and NBC settle theirs too.
What aired
A short clip from the January 2019 March for Life showed Nick Sandmann, a Covington Catholic student in a MAGA hat, standing inches from Nathan Phillips while Phillips beat a drum. The students were described as a mob swarming a Native elder. CNN ran it as harassment. The still of Sandmann’s face became the illustration.
The record
The longer video showed Black Hebrew Israelites taunting the students for a long time, and Phillips walking into the group, not the other way around. Sandmann sued. CNN settled, as did the Washington Post and NBC. The first clip was not a neutral excerpt. It was the only excerpt that made the students the aggressors.
Left out
Left out was the hour before the drum. Also left out was the age of the boys and the fact that a smile, frozen, is not a statement. The hat did the rest. A teenager in that hat was already guilty in the edit, so the edit did not need the rest of the tape.
Why it stuck
It stuck because the still is genuinely uncomfortable and the hat is a costume the audience had been trained to read. Discomfort was treated as evidence. The settlement was an admission that the evidence was the edit. Most people remember the face, not the settlement.