President Donald Trump said his historic meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would not have happened without Otto Warmbier, the American college student who died almost exactly one year ago after he was released from detention in North Korea. 
 
 Speaking at a press conference after Tuesday’s summit in Singapore, Trump paid tribute to Warmbier. 
 
 “Without Otto Warmbier, this summit wouldn’t have happened,” the President said. “Otto is someone who did not die in vain.” 
 
 Warmbier, a 22-year-old University of Virginia student, was touring North Korea when he was arrested for allegedly stealing a propaganda sign. He was sentenced to fifteen years of hard labor. 
 
 Warmbier returned to Ohio in June 2017 in a coma after North Korea released him on “humanitarian grounds.” By then, he had spend 17 months a North Korean prison. He died six days after arriving back in the U.S. 
 
 North Korean officials said Warmbier suffered a brain injury after contacting botulism, a form of poisoning, but U.S. doctors found no evidence of the condition. 
 
 “Something happened from that day,” Trump said at the press conference Tuesday. “It was a terrible thing, it was brutal, but a lot of people started to focus on what was going on — including North Korea.” 
 
 North Korean officials accused Trump of overdramatizing Warmbier’s condition in an effort to pressure Pyongyang over its nuclear weapons arsenal. 
 
 But in his first face-to-face encounter with Kim, Trump was accused of ignoring the pariah state’s human rights record. 
 
 In April, Warmbier’s parents filed a lawsuit against North Korea, alleging that the government tortured and murdered their son. 
 
 Ahead of Tuesday’s highly anticipated summit, Vice President Mike Pence reportedly said Trump traveled to Singapore with Warmbier’s family “on his heart.” 

 President Trump said Tuesday after his historic summit with North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un that the meeting between the two leaders may not have happened if not for the death of Otto Warmbier. 
 
 Warmbier, 22, was a student at the University of Virginia when he was arrested in North Korea in January 2016 for allegedly stealing a propaganda poster. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fell into a coma while incarcerated. He was brought back to the U.S. in June 2017 only to die a few days later. 
 
 “Otto did not die in vain,” Trump said as he discussed North Korea’s human rights record. 
 
 Trump’s comments on Warmbier came after Vice President Mike Pence reassured the Ohio man’s father when he spoke to him ahead of the Singapore summit. 
 
 “Today I assured his dad, as the president said two days ago, their beloved son, Otto Warmbier, will not have died in vain,” Pence said. 
 
 The vice president commended Trump on his success thus far with North Korea, speaking of that country’s participation in the Winter Olympics, the suspension of all ballistic missile testing and, recently, the release of three American hostages. 
 
 Warmbier's parents, Fred and Cindy, said on Trump's comments, "We appreciate President Trump's recent comments about our family. We are proud of Otto and miss him. Hopefully something positive can come from this.” 
 
 Trump said during the news conference that the remains of Americans who died during the Korean War will also be brought home. He said it was a last minute deal and expected more than 6,000 Americans’ remains to be brought back to the U.S. 
 
 Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj and Serafin Gomez and the Associated Press contributed to this report. 

 Buy Photo Enquirer columnist Byron McCauley. (Photo: Amanda Rossmann / The Enquirer)Buy Photo 
 
 Before our sitting president returns from a meeting with the murdering despot of North Korea, Kim Jung Un, and pushes forth alternative facts, remember this. 
 
 
 
 When Otto Warmbier of Wyoming, Ohio came back to the United States after spending 15 months as a prisoner of North Korea, his head was shaved. 
 
 He was blind. 
 
 He was deaf. 
 
 A tube protruded from his nose. 
 
 He howled and jerked. 
 
 He was completely unresponsive. 
 
 These facts can be found in a lawsuit filed in April by Fred and Cindy Warmbier, Otto's mom and dad. 
 
 Understandably, they want to hold Kim Jung Un and his thuggish regime responsible for the death of their son, who was a student at the academically rigorous University of Virginia. 
 
 If past is prologue, Trump will leave this meeting with this meeting with a positive narrative. It will go something like this: The Honorable Kim Jung Un as a man who can be reasoned with. Although we did not resolve the issue of North Korea's nuclear weapons development, we made great progress and will keep the conversation going. I did what no other president in modern history has done, which is to engage North Korea to begin to bring them into the fold of civilized nations. I look forward to keeping the conversation going. 
 
 I could go on, but you get it. 
 
 This will be a great photo opportunity for the president, unlike the photos that are emerging from last week's G7 Summit in Canada. In those Trump seemed as much at odds with our friends than he seems friendly with our (former?) enemies. 
 
 But to be crystal clear, Otto Warmbier's blood covers the hands of Kim and his regime. So, pardon us if we are less than giddy over Trump's visit. 
 
 Notably, Vice President Mike Pence Saturday said he shared a message with the Warmbier family from Trump that Otto's death would not be in vain. Nothing less than a public apology from North Korea to the Warmbier family, among other gestures of contrition and responsibility, should be acceptable. 
 
 And that should be a starting point. 
 
 Mr. President, can you make that happen and tell us what the North Koreans said? 
 
 The last time we saw Otto Warmbier alive, two board-straight police types were taking him away in handcuffs after a North Korean court sentenced him to 15 years hard labor. Warmbier had admitted to removing a poster from a wall, which led a to a trumped-up charge of subversion. 
 
 Warmbier was handsome, thick-haired and tall in a light-weight sports jacket. He wept. He asked for mercy. 
 
 Then he was gone. 
 
 The next time we saw him, almost exactly one year ago today (June 13), Warmbier emerged from a chartered plane on a stretcher. That was all could see. He died days later in a Cincinnati hospital. 
 
 His family's lawsuit offers a small glimpse of the brutality he must have suffered and the pain they experienced when Otto was gone. 
 
 If President Trump comes away with a positive narrative from the summit (and we know he will), the Warmbiers need to be part of the story. 
 
 Enquirer local columnist Byron McCauley is also a member of The Enquirer editorial board. He can be reached at bmccauley@enquirer.com or (513) 768-8565. Twitter: @byronmccauley. 
 
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– Before the event took place, President Trump said his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un showed Otto Warmbier "has not died in vain." He upped that rhetoric Tuesday. "Without Otto Warmbier, this summit wouldn't have happened," Trump said, per Time. "It was a terrible thing," the president added of the US college student's death almost exactly a year ago after he returned unresponsive from a stint in a North Korean prison camp. But "something happened from that day," Trump said. "A lot of people started to focus on what was going on—including North Korea." After referencing North Korea's human rights record, Trump repeated, "Otto did not die in vain," per Fox News. Cincinnati Enquirer columnist Byron McCauley suggests it was more than a passing reference. Writing Monday, McCauley noted "Warmbier's blood covers the hands of Kim and his regime," so "if President Trump comes away with a positive narrative from the summit … the Warmbiers need to be part of the story." (Warmbier's parents claim their son was "brutally tortured and murdered" by North Korea.)