„He tells me that he didn\u2019t know about it and I will take him at his word.“<\/b>
\nDuring President Donald Trump\u2019s summit-ending news conference in Vietnam on Thursday, a reporter asked him if he\u2019d confronted North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un about the treatment of Otto Warmbier, an American student who was imprisoned in North Korea for 15 months, only to return to the US in a comatose state in June 2017 and never recover.
The reporter noted that despite Warmbier\u2019s brutal death, Trump has called Kim \u201c my friend \u201d and repeatedly boasted about their \u201cgreat relationship.\u201d The journalist then asked him, \u201cHave you in Singapore [during the first Trump-Kim summit] or here confronted Kim Jong Un about Otto Warmbier\u2019s death, asked him to take responsibility, and what did he say to you?\u201d
Trump confirmed that he had \u2014 but went on to say he takes Kim\u2019s word for it that he had nothing to do with it.
\u201cI really believe something very bad happened to [Warmbier], and I don\u2019t think that the top leadership knew about it,\u201d Trump said . \u201cI don\u2019t believe that [Kim] would\u2019ve allowed that to happen. It just wasn\u2019t in his advantage to allow that to happen.\u201d
Trump continued:
It\u2019s hard to imagine that North Korea\u2019s totalitarian dictator wasn\u2019t aware of how a high-profile captive was treated \u2014 especially considering the show trial that Warmbier, who was arrested for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster, was forced to endure.
As Vox has previously detailed, the North Korean government claimed Warmbier \u201cwas left in a coma because of a food poisoning disease called botulism, but doctors were strangely unable to identify any trace of botulism or the cause of his deathly injuries.\u201d
American doctors were also unable to discover any physical evidence of abuse or torture \u2014 despite the fact that Warmbier\u2019s parents had described in gruesome detail the horrific state their son was in when he\u2019d returned to the US . \u201cIt looked like someone had taken a pair of pliers and re-arranged his bottom teeth,\u201d Warmbier\u2019s father Fred told GQ magazine .
Trump\u2019s comments absolving Kim of responsibility for Warmbier\u2019s death were widely criticized. Rob Portman, a Republican US senator from Warmbier\u2019s home state of Ohio, released a statement saying \u201c we should never let North Korea off the hook.\u201d
Trump\u2019s former UN Ambassador Nikki Haley also seemed to subtly rebuke the president in a tweet.
But one of the negotiators who worked to bring Warmbier home from North Korea \u2014 Mickey Bergman of the Richardson Center \u2014 told Vox he thought he understood what Trump was trying to say, albeit in an ineloquent way.
\u201cI think what [Trump] was referring to is that Kim told him he doesn\u2019t know what went wrong,\u201d Bergman said, adding that \u201cwhether we want to believe that or not\u201d is another question.
Bergman pointed out that it\u2019s unprecedented for a North Korean hostage to be returned to the US \u201cin a coma.\u201d Along the same lines, Bergman characterized the Warmbier tragedy as \u201can anomaly\u201d during an interview earlier Thursday on Fox News .
But Bergman also told Vox that \u201cthere is no doubt whatsoever in my mind and in anybody else\u2019s mind that the North Koreans are absolutely responsible for the death of Otto Warmbier.\u201d
\u201cWhether it was intentional or an accident,\u201d he continued, \u201che was under their control or supervision, and the fact that he was in the detention for more than a year in North Korea I would argue is torture in itself.\u201d
Trump, however, wasn\u2019t even willing to go that far.
Trump\u2019s comments about believing Kim when he says he had nothing to do with Warmbier\u2019s death echo comments he\u2019s made about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS).
Though the US intelligence community concluded that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election on Trump\u2019s behalf, Trump said during a joint news conference with Putin last July that Putin \u201c was extremely strong and powerful in his denial \u201d and hence \u201cI don\u2019t see any reason\u201d to believe the US intelligence community over Putin\u2019s word. Trump\u2019s comments were widely criticized, and he later said he misspoke .
And while the US intelligence community concluded the Saudi government was responsible for the murder of dissident journalist and US resident Jamal Khashoggi last fall, Trump indicated he\u2019s willing to take MBS\u2019s word for it that he wasn\u2019t involved.
During his news conference Thursday, Trump once again signaled a willingness to believe the word of an authoritarian over that of his own intelligence community. Asked about intelligence reports that North Korea has recently expanded its nuclear and missile programs, Trump responded that he doesn\u2019t necessarily buy it.
\u201cSome people are saying that, and some people are denying that,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSome people are saying that and some people aren\u2019t.\u201d
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox\u2019s policy and politics coverage.<\/p>\n