Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign has hired Nick Sandmann, the Kentucky teenager known for his viral encounter with a ...
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's campaign has hired Nick Sandmann, the Kentucky teenager known for his viral encounter with a Native American man at the Lincoln Memorial last year.
Sandmann, 18, landed a paid position as grassroots director for McConnell's reelection effort in Kentucky, the senator's campaign said Friday.
Sandmann started his new role this month, and McConnell campaign manager Kevin Golden said they're 'excited' to have him on board.
As grassroots director, Sandmann will assist in developing field operations and building coalitions.
Nick Sandmann (left) was hired as the grassroots director for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (right) re-election campaign
Sandmann (left) made headlines in 2019 after a clip taken during the March For Life event where he stood closely to Nathan Phillips, a Native American man that was advocating for indigenous rights
Team Mitch welcomed Nick Sandmann to the team and confirmed his position on Twitter
'Along with our already strong team, his efforts to bring people together all across Kentucky will be critical to Senator McConnell´s victory this November,' Golden said in a statement.
Sandmann, a student at Transylvania University in Lexington, revealed his new position on Twitter.
'Finally got to add more to my bio than just my schools,' he wrote, to which McConnell's campaign replied 'Welcome to #TeamMitch.'
McConnell, the top congressional ally to President Donald Trump, is seeking a seventh term.
His Democratic challenger is Amy McGrath, a retired Marine combat pilot who has raised huge amounts of campaign cash but faces an uphill fight against McConnell in conservative-leaning Kentucky.
McConnell's fight for the senate seat will be against Amy McGrath (pictured), a retired Marine combat pilot whose campaign has raised large amounts of money
Sandmann first garnered national attention after he and his classmates from Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Kentucky, attended the March For Life rally in Washington D.C.
Several anti-abortion groups rallied near the Lincoln Memorial in January 2019, while activists for the Indigenous Peoples March simultaneously rallied nearby.
A viral clip showed the two groups facing off at one point with Sandmann, who was 16 years old at the time, standing before a Native American man named Nathan Phillips.
It showed Sandmann and Phillips standing close to each other, with Sandmann staring and at times smiling at Phillips as Phillips played on a drum. Sandmann was wearing a red 'Make America Great Again' cap.
Sandmann (pictured) made a virtual appearance during the Republican National Convention this week
Initial reactions painted the Covington students as the aggressors, with accusations of racism and white privilege.
Both Sandmann and Phillips later said they were trying to defuse tensions among groups that had held competing demonstrations.
Sandmann would later sue several medias outlets, including CNN and the Washington Post, over their coverage of the incident and him, which he labeled as defamation and said did not portray what actually happened that day.
The two parties settled for an undisclosed amount, but Sandmann initially sued for $275million.
Sandmann was in the national spotlight again at this week's Republican National Convention.
He gave a speech accusing news outlets of being driven by 'anti-Christian, anti-conservative, anti-Donald Trump' bias in reporting on his encounter at the Lincoln Memorial.
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