President Donald Trump agrees with the family of Otto Warmbier that North Korea should be held responsible for the college student's torture and death, but he is saying there is no indication that Chairman Kim Jong Un knew what happened to him "when it happened," presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said Friday.
"I've just spoken to the president and we talked about this very issue," Conway told Fox News' "America's Newsroom." "The president agrees with the Warmbier family and holds North Korea responsible for Otto Warmbier's death, and he said that time and again."
"What (Trump) is talking about is that Chairman Kim did not know what happened to Otto at the time when it happened," Conway said Friday. "Of course he holds North Korea responsible. He has deep affection and shares the grief of the Warmbier family. That will never end."
Trump has come under fire by politicians from both sides of the aisle, as well as Warmbier's family after saying during this week's summit in Hanoi, Vietnam between himself and Kim that the North Korean dictator "tells me he didn't know about it, and I will take him at his word."
Trump is responsible for having Warmbier, 22, returned to the United States "and be reunited with his family in the final hours before he passed," Conway said. The young man died a few days after being returned in a comatose state to the United States in 2017.
She also rejected criticism that Trump elevated Kim by meeting with him.
"The president walked away from the (denuclearization) deal he thought was bad," said Conway. "How does that elevate the person who wanted the president to agree to the deal?"
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.