Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., rebuked President Trump for his “reprehensible” comments letting North Korean leader Kim Jong Un off the hook for American student Otto Warmbier’s death.
“This is the conundrum of Donald Trump for many of us who like his policies and don’t like a lot of the things he does and says,” Santorum, said on CNN where he is a political commentator and has been a vocal supporter of the president.
“But, this is reprehensible, what he just did. He gave cover, as you said, to a leader who knew very well what was going on with Otto Warmbier,” Santorum said. “And again, I don’t understand why the president does this. I am disappointed, to say the least, that he did it.”
Former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley also weighed in, but refrained from specifically naming Trump.
“Americans know the cruelty that was placed on Otto Warmbier by the North Korean regime. Our hearts are with the Warmbier family for their strength and courage. We will never forget Otto,” Haley tweeted Thursday.
[Opinion: The ‘America first’ president just gave Kim Jong Un cover for the murder of an American student]
Americans know the cruelty that was placed on Otto Warmbier by the North Korean regime. Our hearts are with the Warmbier family for their strength and courage. We will never forget Otto. ❤️??
— Nikki Haley (@NikkiHaley) February 28, 2019
Trump spoke of Warmbier after he met with Kim for the second time in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The president, who departed early without a denuclearization deal, told reporters during a press conference he and Kim talked about Warmbier during their discussions and claimed Kim “felt badly about it.”
During a tour of North Korea in late 2015, Warmbier was accused of trying to steal a propaganda poster and was sentenced in March 2016 to hard labor after a trial. The Trump administration secured his release in June 2017, but he returned home in a coma and died days later. Doctors determined that he had major loss of tissue in all areas of his brain.
