Furious Ben Shapiro Calls Trump Statement on Kim Jong Un 'F***ing Pathetic'
Conservative commentator Ben Shapiro sent an F-bomb President Donald Trump’s way in response to Trump’s comments Thursday about the death of American Otto Warmbier in North Korean hands.
Warmbier had been arrested by North Korea in 2015 and accused of espionage. After torture and maltreatment, he was released in 2017 and returned to the United States shortly before his death.
Trump was asked whether he and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un talked about the American’s death and whether Kim took responsibility for it.
“I really don’t think it was in his interest at all. I know the Warmbier family very well. I think they’re an incredible family. What happened is horrible. I really believe something very bad happened to him, and I don’t think that the top leadership knew about it,” Trump replied, according to a White House media pool report.
“And when they had to send him home — by the way, I got the prisoners back. I got the hostages back. And Otto was one of the hostages, but Otto came back in shape that was not even to be talked about. I find it — I thought it was horrible. Now, the others came back extremely healthy. But Otto came back in a condition that was just — just terrible,” Trump said.
“I did speak about it, and I don’t believe that he would’ve allowed that to happen. 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 was — I don’t believe he knew about it,” Trump said.
“He felt badly about it. I did speak to him. He felt very badly. But he knew the case very well, but he knew it later. And, you know, you got a lot of people. A big country. A lot of people. And in those prisons and those camps, you have a lot of people. And some really bad things happened to Otto. Some really, really bad things,” Trump said.
“He tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word,” Trump added.
Shapiro’s response was two words: “F—ing pathetic.”
F***ing pathetic https://t.co/HrpNXyOPNk
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 28, 2019
Shapiro also tweeted a litany of criticisms of the summit itself, which ended with no further agreements on denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
And don’t give me “the alternative was nuclear war”! No, it absolutely was and is not. Face-to-face meetings with gulag-masters without any pre-negotiation are amateur hour. Flattering a man who murders American citizens and his own relatives impunity is unconscionable.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 28, 2019
I’ve said for two years that Trump’s sycophancy-for-denuclearization strategy was high-risk, high-reward — and that if it failed, it was utter foolishness. Supporters of the strategy assured Americans that this was all part of the plan. Obviously, it wasn’t.
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) February 28, 2019
Trump’s comments on Warmbier were also excoriated by Republican Rick Santorum, a former U.S. senator and presidential candidate.
“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, according to CNN.
“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. And again, I don’t understand why the President does this. I am disappointed, to say the least, that he did it,” Santorum said.
Santorum, however, said Trump was right to cut the summit short and walk away if there was no deal to be made.
“What he did in Hanoi was the right thing to do — he walked away from a bad deal. He hopefully saw this as a learning experience that the North Koreans can’t and shouldn’t be trusted,” Santorum said.
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