- Well, welcome to The 700 Club.
A Catholic school in Kentuckyis closed again today
after its students received death threats.
It all began when amisleading video went viral,
and the mainstream media turned it
into a national controversy.
- The students were accusedof mocking a group of
Native Americans at the LincolnMemorial in Washington DC.
Then, more videos came out,
and those told a much different story.
Dale Hurd explains.
- Covington CatholicHigh School in Kentucky
will stay closed until policesay it's safe to reopen,
after violent threats againstthe school and the students,
all because of a viralvideo on social media
and a rush to judgmentin the mainstream media.
Nick Sandmann, the teenat the center of the video
is speaking out today.
- As far as standing there,
I had every right to do so.
My position is that I was notdisrespectful to Mr. Phillips.
I respect him, I'd like to talk to him.
I mean, in hindsight, I wish we could've
walked away and avoided the whole thing.
- [Dale] It was over thisvideo, which shows Sandmann
and others, many wearing MakeAmerica Great Again hats,
appearing to surround Nathan Phillips
and a Native American groupat the Lincoln Memorial.
Sandmann's group was attending
the March for Life in Washington.
Phillips was there for anindigenous peoples march.
In one clip, the studentswere seen chanting
and laughing as Phillips drummed.
Social media went into a frenzy,
condemning and threateningSandmann and his classmates.
Then a longer clip putthe incident in context.
- [Man] That's right.
- [Dale] There was also a BlackHebrew Israelite group there
yelling insults and racistslurs at the Catholic students,
who were chanting back at them
while waiting to get on a school bus.
Republican Kentuckyrepresentative, Thomas Massie,
defended Sandmann and theCovington Catholic students.
- [Thomas Massie] They werehoping to learn something about
the Capitol, but what they got
was a lesson in social media mobs.
- [Dale] A number of tweetsthreatened the boys with death,
including this one, which depicted them
being put into a wood chipper.
When the whole context ofthe episode was revealed,
many in the media issued retractions.
Twitter suspended an account that helped
spread the original video,
and a legal firm for the boys is preparing
lawsuits for libel.
President Trump weighed in on their side,
tweeting, "Nick Sandmann andthe students of Covington
have become symbols of fakenews and how evil it can be."
Critics of the Covington teens said
their hats were symbols of racism,
but Nick Sandmann toldcritics he's no racist,
and called the attacks amob-like character assassination
of his family's name.
Dale Hurd, CBN News.
- And let me add to it,that character assassination
was politically motivated.
The Twitter account that was shut down,
here's the name of it, @2020FIGHT,
so you have that name, @2020FIGHT,that's clearly political.
You're looking forwardto the 2020 election.
And here's what this account is doing,
it was posting 130 times a day,
and on top of it, falsely claiming
to be a California schoolteacher named Talia,
and the picture on the account
is actually a picture ofa blogger from Brazil.
The blogger from Brazil isn't behind this.
That picture was ripped off the web,
so who actually, whoknows who was actually
running the account?
Now here's what's happened.
That video that was posted,that account edited the video
to make it as clearly misrepresenting
what the students were doing.
That was intentional, and it went viral.
Over 2 1/2 million people watched it,
and they in turn wereintentionally manipulated
to do what I considerabsolutely incredible things,
call for high school studentsto be put into a wood chipper.
This is the state of affairsthat we've gotten to,
and for major news outletsto take it and run with it,
and spread it even furtherthan that Twitter account
is just mind-boggling to me.
We are in an age of fake news.
Now, who's really behind that website?
I don't know, could itbe a foreign government?
I don't know.
Somebody's clearly payingfor 130 posts a day.
One individual literally can't do that.
So there's a whole staff involved.
We need to find out who was behind it,
but we're being manipulated,
and the amazing thing to me is that
we're actually findingout the political parties
are involved in this fake news.
The Democrats were found out to be posting
fake news stories in arace recently in Alabama.
There's no national outcry over that.
It's sort of like the dirty tricks
are part of our politics, and do we say
it's okay for them to do that?
There needs to be accountability here,
and we've got to come to some kind of a--
You know, what's real?
Can major news things pickup things from Twitter
and just run with it?
Well, there's gonna be a libel case.
That's gonna wind through the courts,
but hold onto your hats.
We're in for a wild rideover the next two years
'til this next election,
and whatever is on social media,
I'm of a mind don't believe a word of it.
In other news, PresidentTrump is writing two
State of the Union speeches, just in case
he's disinvited by HouseSpeaker Nancy Pelosi.
John Jessup has more from ourCBN News Bureau in Washington.
John?
- That's right, Gordon,President Trump is still planning
to deliver the State of theUnion Address next Tuesday,
although it's unclear wherehe'll make that speech.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
suggested the Presidentpostpone his address,
citing security concerns dueto the government shutdown.
Homeland SecuritySecretary Kirstjen Nielsen
responded saying theSecret Service and DHS
are fully ready to secure.
Still, the Speaker of the Housecan disinvite the President.
Mr. Trump reportedly iswriting two speeches,
considering an alternatelocation for the annual address.
Well, it looks like the SupremeCourt won't tip the scales
in the shutdown negotiationsby ruling on DACA.
The high court made no mention Tuesday
of the dispute over the future of children
brought here illegally by their parents.
In 2017, the administration announced
it was phasing out the Obama era program,
a move DACA supporterschallenged in the courts.
Last week, the Presidentproposed extending DACA
in a compromise with Democrats,
in exchange for border wall funding.
The Trump administrationhad hoped the Supreme Court
would rule in the President's favor,
strengthening his handin the negotiations.
