Donald Trump’s shocking, shameful about-face on Otto Warmbier

“You are powerful witnesses to a menace that threatens our world, and your strength inspires us all,” Trump said, addressing Warmbier’s parents, during his 2018 State of the Union address. “Tonight, we pledge to honor Otto’s memory with American resolve.” He added in that same speech: “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.”

Fast forward to Thursday in Hanoi, when, at a summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump said this of Warmbier and North Korea: “He tells me that he didn’t know about it and I will take him at his word.” Trump added that Kim “felt badly about it. He felt very badly.”

On its face, Kim’s claim that he was unaware of Warmbier’s arrest and treatment is beyond laughable. Kim rules North Korea with an iron fist. He wouldn’t know that an American college student had been arrested in his country? He would miss how Warmbier’s arrest and incarceration became a massive national and international story? And at no time in the 18 months Warmbier was held would anyone in Kim’s government ever see fit to mention that they were holding an American prisoner?

Like I said, that’s beyond unbelievable.

So why did Trump reverse course on Warmbier and North Korea? Simple: Because it was the politically expedient thing to do.

In order to do that, Trump is willing to say and do whatever is needed — up to and including giving a violent dictator a pass on the wrongful imprisonment and mistreatment of an American college student who, after being held for 18 months, was returned to the United States in a vegetative state and died days later.

While Trump’s willingness to overlook Kim’s clear falsehoods about Warmbier may make an eventual denuclearization deal more likely (although, at this point, who really knows?) the question that has to be asked is, at what cost? How much of our moral principles and standing in the world are we willing to sacrifice to appease a dictator with a horrendous human rights record?

Trump’s answer — at least on Thursday — appears to be all of our moral principles. Because if we have to accept the farce that Kim Jong Un knew nothing about what happened to Otto Warmbier, what other atrocities will we be made to overlook?

Rick Santorum said it best on CNN Thursday morning.

Yup.