Former United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power condemned President Trump on Thursday for appearing to dismiss the plight of missing dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi because he isn't a U.S. citizen.

"Devastating. Trump’s cruelty and selfishness are unrivaled by any American public figure in memory," Power posted on Twitter.


Power, who served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under former President Barack Obama, also shared a video of Trump saying Thursday how he would prefer not to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia over the disappearance of Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist and permanent U.S. resident. The president last spring approved a controversial $110 billion defense deal with kingdom.

"First of all, I want to find out what happened, and we're looking," Trump told reporters in the White House. "Again, this took place in Turkey and, to the best of our knowledge, Khashoggi is not a United States citizen."

Khashoggi, a critic of the Saudi royal family, has not been seen since Oct. 2 when he visited the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey. It is widely feared that Khashoggi has been murdered, given reports that a group of 15 Saudis described as an assassination squad arrived at the consulate about the same time.