Otto Warmbier?s family responds to Trump?s defense of Kim Jong Un, saying Kim?s ?evil regime? is responsible for their son?s death

President Trump sparred publicly Friday with the parents of Otto Warmbier after they rebuked him for holding North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un blameless in their son’s death following 17 months in captivity, as growing tensions between them burst into an open feud.Hours after Fred and Cindy Warmbier issued an emotional statement that directly accused Kim and his “evil regime” of killing their son in 2017, Trump asserted in a pair of tweets that his views had been “misinterpreted” when he defended Kim at a news conference a day earlier in Hanoi.Trump had said, in response to a question from a Washington Post reporter, that Kim felt “very badly” about Warmbier’s death and that he took the authoritarian leader “at his word” that he was unaware of the college student’s abusive treatment.“Of course I hold North Korea responsible for Otto’s mistreatment and death,” Trump wrote on Twitter, without mentioning Kim. The president blamed the Obama administration for not doing more to secure Warmbier’s release and emphasized that Warmbier “will not have died in vain” as he continues to negotiate with Pyongyang.“Otto and his family have become a tremendous symbol of strong passion and strength, which will last for many years into the future,” Trump wrote. “I love Otto and think of him often.”Trump’s effort at political damage control came hours after the Warmbiers said they felt compelled to speak out after maintaining a relatively low profile out of respect for the president’s sensitive negotiations with Kim, including summits in Singapore last June and in Hanoi this week.[‘He tells me he didn’t know’: Trump defends Kim Jong Un over death of Otto Warmbier]The president had sought to forge a bond with the family as part of an international pressure campaign on the Kim regime in 2017 and early 2018 that helped lead to the summits, the first between a sitting U.S. president and a North Korean leader.