Yesterday, news broke that the Trump administration agreed to pay $2 million in “medical care” costs when comatose Otto Wormbier was returned to U.S. custody a week before he died. Yet in his nearly 45-minute chat with Donald Trump last night, Sean Hannity didn’t ask a single question about Warmbier.
Yesterday afternoon, The Washington Post broke the story:
North Korea issued a $2 million bill for the hospital care of comatose American Otto Warmbier, insisting that a U.S. official sign a pledge to pay it before being allowed to fly the University of Virginia student home from Pyongyang in 2017.
The presentation of the invoice — not previously disclosed by U.S. or North Korean officials — was extraordinarily brazen even for a regime known for its aggressive tactics.
But the main U.S. envoy sent to retrieve Warmbier signed an agreement to pay the medical bill on instructions passed down from President Trump, according to two people familiar with the situation. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly.
The bill went to the Treasury Department, where it remained — unpaid — throughout 2017, the people said. However, it is unclear whether the Trump administration later paid the bill, or whether it came up during preparations for Trump’s two summits with Kim Jong Un.
Warmbier died six days after he returned home.
Following his last summit with Kim Jong-un, Trump completely absolved Kim during a press conference. “[S]ome really bad things happened to Otto, some really, really bad things,” Trump said, then immediately added, “He [Kim] tells me that he didn’t know about it, and I will take him at his word.”
The evidence indicates Warmbier was never beaten or tortured in custody but only a self-serving ignoramus like Trump would believe, or think other people would believe, that Kim was too busy watching the North Korean version of Fox & Friends to know about a comatose American prisoner.
The Post also noted that as recently as September 30, Trump claimed the U.S. paid “nothing” for the return of North Korean “hostages.”
As Erik Wemple noted, the so-called interview was really a case of Hannity allowing Trump to guest-host the show. The Warmbier matter or, in this case, non-matter, is a case in point. Surely a Trump worshipper like Hannity could have found a way to broach what was one of the biggest news items of the day involving his guest. The fact that he didn't proves just who was running the show.
By the way, Hannity didn’t ask about Warmbier during his interview right after Trump’s post-Kim presser, either.
I think we can all imagine the 24/7 Fox poutrage had President Barack Obama agreed to pay North Korea $2 million for the care of an American prisoner who fell into a coma while in custody – and then taken Kim’s word that he knew nothing about what happened. But on Fox News, a commander in chief putting North Korea over America is OK if you're a Republican.
Watch it below, from the April 25, 2019 Hannity. Or, if you prefer, you can read the transcript at RealClear Politics.