Before their summit meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, ended abruptly, Mr. Trump said that he and Mr. Kim, the North Korean leader, had discussed Mr. Warmbier and that Mr. Kim felt “badly” about what happened to the American. Mr. Warmbier died shortly after he was released to the United States, with doctors saying he had sustained a catastrophic brain injury. Referring to Mr. Kim, Mr. Trump said, “He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”He also said: “I don’t believe that he would have allowed that to happen, it just wasn’t to his advantage to allow that to happen. Those prisons are rough, they’re rough places, and bad things happened. But I really don’t believe that he, I don’t believe that he knew about it.”

Source: New York Times February 28, 2019 21:38 UTC