President Donald Trump issued a very clear threat against the United Nations Wednesday, saying that the United States was not going to continue funding an entity that keeps voting against our interests.
"I like the message that Nikki [Haley] sent yesterday at the United Nations," the president said, "for all those nations that take our money and then they vote against us at the Security Council, or they vote against us potentially at the assembly.
"They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Well, we're watching those votes. Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care," Trump said.
"But this isn't like it used to be where they could vote against you and then you pay them hundreds of millions of dollars and nobody knows what they're doing," he added.
"People are tired of the United States," he concluded, "being taken advantage of and we're not going to be taken advantage of any longer."
Trump made the comments to reporters Wednesday while Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sat beside him at the White House.
He was referring to comments from Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, who excoriated the world organization for planning a vote to condemn the United States for the decision to move the embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Haley tweeted, "when we make a decision, at the will of the American [people], [about] where to locate OUR embassy, we don't expect those we've helped to target us. On [Thursday] there'll be a vote criticizing our choice. The US will be taking names."
