Scarborough: Nikki Haley made threats ‘like a mob boss’ over UN Jerusalem vote

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough says U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley acted “like a mob boss” in pressuring countries to oppose a resolution condemning the U.S. decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. 

“I saw Nikki Haley yesterday actually threatening like a mob boss,” Scarborough said on “Morning Joe” Friday. “Threatening member states of the United Nations. ‘You either be with us on this non-binding resolution, or else we will always remember. And we may yank humanitarian aid out of the mouths of the most truly disadvantaged on the planet.’”

{mosads}The U.N. General Assembly voted Thursday 128-9 to condemn President Trump’s decision on Jerusalem. Haley suggested the U.S. could cut funding for the U.N. over the vote of punish member countries that backed the resolution.

After the vote she said the U.S. was “singled out in this assembly for the very act of exercising our right as a sovereign nation.” And she added the U.S. would remember the vote when “once again, we are called up to make the world’s largest contribution to the U.N.” 

“You know, you sit and listen to Nikki Haley, a representative of the United States of America, and it’s breathtaking that she would actually threaten to cut off aid and support, and humanitarian aid,” Scarborough said. 

Scarborough said Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital was “one of the most controversial foreign policy moves that anybody could make.” 

Trump’s move broke with decades of U.S. policy. Presidents from both parties had long held that the status of Jerusalem should be decided in peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

Trump also suggested the U.S. could cut off aid for countries that opposed it in the U.N. vote. Scarborough said foreign aid is a valuable source of soft power and serves a vital humanitarian purpose. 

“Donald Trump and Nikki Haley engaged in something between school yard taunt and a mob boss’s threat, and they did it as our representatives,” Scarborough said. 

Scarborough, a former GOP lawmaker, is a vocal critic of Trump.