Donald Trump defends MAGA teen Nick Sandmann over confrontation with Native American, saying treatment symbolises ‘evil’ of fake news

US President Donald Trump has defended a group of high school students who were filmed facing off with a Native American activist and military veteran in Washington.

In a tweet on Tuesday, the president said the students “have become symbols of fake news”. He also suggested the students will use their experience “to bring people together”.

The students from the Covington Catholic high school, in northern Kentucky, were filmed appearing to mock a group of Native Americans taking part in the Indigenous Peoples March in Washington DC last Friday.

The student at the centre of the footage, Nick Sandmann – dubbed the “MAGA teen” – later said he was confronted by Nathan Phillips, the Native American activist who features most prominently in the video.

New video casts different light on teens’ encounter with Native American elder Nathan Phillips

The first footage of the incident to be widely circulated showed a group of students, many wearing red “Make America Great Again” Trump hats, shouting and seemingly encircling the Native American group. One of the teens, later identified as Sandmann, stood centimetres from Phillips, an Omaha tribe elder, seeming to smirk as Phillips chanted and played a drum.

“Nick Sandmann and the students of Covington have become symbols of Fake News and how evil it can be,” Trump wrote on Tuesday. “They have captivated the attention of the world, and I know they will use it for the good – maybe even to bring people together.

“It started off unpleasant, but can end in a dream!”

The president also addressed the subject on Monday, apparently while watching a discussion on Fox News.

The students were in DC to attend the March for Life, an anti-abortion rally. The Diocese of Covington and Covington Catholic high school apologised for their behaviour.

“We condemn the actions of the Covington Catholic High School students towards Nathan Phillips specifically, and Native Americans in general, Jan 18, after the March for Life, in Washington, DC,” the organisations said in a statement. “We extend our deepest apologies to Mr Phillips. This behaviour is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.”

Phillips, a Vietnam-era veteran, told Detroit Free Press he was trying to maintain calm between the predominantly white students and several members of another group, of Black Hebrew Israelites, before the video was shot.

“They were in the process of attacking these four black individuals,” Phillips claimed. “So I put myself in between that, between a rock and hard place.”

Phillips told the paper some of the four Black Hebrew Israelite members present said “some harsh things” and that one spat toward the Catholic students.

In a statement on Sunday, Sandmann insisted he was trying to be the peacemaker.

“When we arrived, we noticed four African American protesters who were also on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial,” Sandmann said in the statement published by WKRC, a local media outlet. “I did hear them direct derogatory insults at our school group … They called us ‘racists’, ‘bigots’, ‘white crackers’, ‘faggots’ and ‘incest kids’.”

Several minutes later, Sandmann said, a group of Native Americans, including Phillips, approached.

“He locked eyes with me and approached me, coming within inches of my face. He played his drum the entire time he was in my face,” Sandmann said.

Though other videos have emerged that show different views of the incident, the first video prompted outrage in all corners of the American political landscape.

On Tuesday afternoon, White House sources denied to The Guardian a report that the Covington students would be visiting Trump at the White House. Fox News host Laura Ingraham had claimed that students seen in the video would be meeting with Trump “as early as tomorrow”.