President Donald Trump says he doesn’t think North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was involved in the mistreatment of American college student Otto Warmbier, who died after being detained in the North.
Trump says of Kim: “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”
Trump has taken credit for freeing American prisoners abroad and used Warmbier’s death as a rallying cry against the North’s human rights abuses before softening his rhetoric before talks with Kim.
Warmbier, a University of Virginia student from Ohio, was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in 2016 on suspicion of stealing a propaganda poster. He died in June 2017, shortly after being sent home in a coma.
His parents say he was tortured.
(AP)
Join the official YWN WhatsApp status
8 Responses
A despicable outrage!
He believes Putin, he believes the Saudis, but doesn’t believe Americans!
What’s trump doing out of the country in the middle of a national emergency??!!
Odd as it seems this might actually be true. As the president said, what’s in it for Kim to have done this? This is very different from the MBS/Kashoggi case, where MBS got rid of a thorn in his side. I understand Kim holding Americans prisoner but torturing them is more likely to tick us off than make us want to negotiate and give him things.
Yes ChanieE, because a kooky communist dictator known for such things as strapping his uncle to an anti-aircraft gun and having people smear anthrax on his brother’s face definitely needs a logical reason to bother his main enemy. He spent years launching missiles with the singular purpose of bothering America, he doesn’t need a reason to kill civilians. Do you really believe a crazy dictator that who has massive gulags that he never meant to hurt this guy?
Hey Chanie,
& the moon is made of cheese
Different target audience. Kim has to maintain control over his people so he scares them into knowing that if they so much as think about maybe taking a step out of line they and their families will be made to pay, horrifically. On the other hand, there’s no benefit in pushing the US too hard. You think he wants to end up like Qaddafi? Kim may be crazy but I don’t think he’s stupid. Of course I don’t believe the overwhelming majority of things he says but sometimes liars do tell the truth and I’m open to the possibility that something went horribly wrong with Otto Warmbier, rather than his having been targeted for torture at Kim’s behest.
In other words Kim is just as clueless about his government as Mr. Trump is about his? Kim wouldn’t have gotten where he is, or stayed there alive, if he didn’t know everything that was going on, especially in an internationally sensitive case. Mr. Trump is so used to conning people that he cons himself, or at least expects to con the American people.
What an embarrassment to America! What a weak and pathetic leader!
Those that criticized Obama’s posture overseas should hang their heads in shame when the current occupant of the oval office salutes a NK General and publicly states that he takes dictators and despots like Kim and Putin at their word.