Defends N. Korea leader

Trump defends N. Korea leader over death of student

President: Kim says he was unaware jailed American was abused

By Rob Tornoe

President Donald Trump has defended Kim Jong Un over the death of Otto Warmbier, a 22-year-old American student who was imprisoned in North Korea and died just days after returning to the United States in a vegetative state in June 2017.

"He felt badly about it. I did speak about it, and I don't believe that he would have allowed that to happen," Trump told reporters during a news conference following the abbreviated summit in Hanoi, Vietnam. "He tells me that he didn't know about it and I will take him at his word."

Trump added, "Those prisons are rough, and bad things happen, but I really don't believe he knew about it."

Trump's comments defending the North Korean dictator were widely criticized Thursday. CNN chief national security correspondent Jim Sciutto, who was covering the summit in Vietnam, called it "truly remarkable" that Trump would "run cover for Kim on Otto Warmbier." Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California, one of the president's most outspoken critics, called his defense of Kim "detestable."

"He seems to find warmth with authoritarian dictatorships and believes them and their word when they have records of violating international law and human rights than to believe our own intelligence community," Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said.

Trump's comments were also called out by Nikki Haley, his former U.N. ambassador, who wrote on Twitter that "Americans know the cruelty that was placed on Otto Warmbier by the North Korean regime."

Senior CNN analyst Rick Santorum, a former Republican Pennsylvania senator and a supporter of the president, was among those harshly critical of Trump's comments.

"This is reprehensible, what he just did," Santorum said on CNN's "New Day." "He gave cover, as you just said, to a leader who knew very well what was going on with Otto Warmbier. I don't understand why the president does this. I am disappointed."

Trump's defense of the North Korean leader echoed his repeated backing of Vladimir Putin, despite assessments from U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered during the 2016 presidential election.

"Every time he sees me, he says, 'I didn't do that,'" Trump said during a news conference alongside Putin following a meeting in Helsinki, Finland, last year. "I really believe that when he tells me that, he means it."

Trump was also criticized by fellow Republicans when he said he believed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who claimed to have had no involvement in the gruesome murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in October.

"Why such generous assessments of dubious claims by geopolitical opponents or those deeply implicated in bad activity?" wrote Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump. "It seems, Trump believes that his personal relationship with those leaders is the best route to getting what he wants in his interactions with them."

According to the United Nations, North Korea is among the world's worst abusers of human rights, including committing crimes such as murder, enslavement, torture, false imprisonment and prolonged starvation.

"The unspeakable atrocities that are being committed against inmates of the political prison camps resemble the horrors of camps that totalitarian states established during the 20th century," a 2014 U.N. commission report stated.

Warmbier, a University of Virginia student, was arrested and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor after being accused of removing a propaganda banner from a hotel during a visit to Pyongyang in January 2016. He was returned to the U.S. in June 2017 after having spent 17 months in custody, but in a vegetative state known as "unresponsive wakefulness." He died two days later.

"We need only look at the depraved character of the North Korean regime to understand the nature of the nuclear threat it could pose to America and our allies," Trump said during his first address to Congress, six months after Warmbier's death. Warmbier's parents were in the audience.

"You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all," Trump said to Warmbier's parents. "Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve."