JUST IN: PRESS RELEASE FROM THE OFFICE OF REPUBLICAN SENATOR MIKE LEE OF UTAH.

Calling for the United States' complete withdrawal from the UN, Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah has introduced the Disengaging Entirely from the United Nations Debacle (DEFUND) Act,.

The DEFUND Act  "addresses grave issues of national sovereignty and fiscal accountability which have plagued US. involvement in the UN".

Co-sponsored in the Senate by Republican Senators Marsha Blackburn and Rick Scott, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers and Representative Chip Roy (also Republicans) the accompanying comments by Senator Lee read:

"No more blank checks for the United Nations. Americans' hard-earned dollars have been funneled into initiatives that fly in the face of our values, enabling tyrants, betraying allies, and spreading bigotry

"With the DEFUND Act, we're stepping away from this debacle. If we engage with the UN in the future, it will be on our terms, with the full backing of the Senate and an iron-clad escape clause."

He said the UN had betrayed U.S. trust repeatedly, and that the country should not "to be their cash cow" while the UN undermines the U.S.'s own national security and interests.

Meantime, Senator Blackburn said: “The DEFUND Act will stop all forms of U.S. financial support to the UN and hold this wayward organisation accountable for placating Hamas terrorists and the Chinese Communist Party.”

Meantime, Senator Chip Roy commented:  “From UNRWA actively protecting Hamas and acting against our ally Israel, and delaying condemnation of Hamas, to China being elected to the 'Human Rights Council,' to the propagation of climate hysteria, covering for China's forced abortion and sterilisation programs . . . the UN's decades-old, internal rot once again raises the questions of why the United States is even still a member or why we're wasting billions every year on it."