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Teen Wearing MAGA Hat In Viral Video: 'I Had Every Right' To Stand There

Covington Catholic High student Nick Sandmann has told NBC he was "not disrespectful" to Native American activist Nathan Phillips.

Nick Sandmann, the MAGA hat-wearing teen at the center of Friday’s highly publicized stand-off with Native American activist Nathan Phillips in Washington, D.C., believes his actions were “not disrespectful.”

Footage of the Covington Catholic High School student ― and his peers ― went viral following the incident, showing the group surrounding Phillips on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial as he performed an American Indian Movement song.

Sandmann, who is seen in the video smiling just inches away from the Native American elder’s face, told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie he “had every right” to stand before Phillips.

“My position is that I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips. I respect him, I would like to talk to him,” he said. “In hindsight, I wish we could have walked away and avoided the whole thing.”

Sandmann’s sit-down interview comes after an earlier statement was released on his behalf by a public relations firm in which he claimed to have been singled out by Phillips.

“I believed that by remaining motionless and calm, I was helping to [defuse] the situation,” it read. “I said a silent prayer that the situation would not get out of hand.”

The viral incident has prompted nationwide outrage at both ends of the political spectrum, with the situation becoming only more complicated after more than an hour of footage from the encounter emerged Sunday.

In various interviews, Phillips said he had approached the teens from the school group in an attempt to thwart any potential violence between them and a group of several black men identifying themselves as Hebrew Israelites.

“It was getting ugly, and I was thinking: ‘I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation and finish my song at the Lincoln Memorial,’” he told The Washington Post. “I started going that way, and that guy in the hat [Sandmann] stood in my way, and we were at an impasse.”

Sandmann denied blocking Phillips and said in a statement that he is “a faithful Christian and practicing Catholic, and I always try to live up to the ideals my faith teaches me ― to remain respectful of others and to take no action that would lead to conflict or violence.”

While only a teaser of Sandmann’s one-on-one with Guthrie has been shared by NBC ahead of its full airing Wednesday, Twitter users are already divided over the network’s decision to interview him.

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This article exists as part of the online archive for HuffPost India, which closed in 2020. Some features are no longer enabled. If you have questions or concerns about this article, please contact indiasupport@huffpost.com.