The Pentagon announced Friday that it would shut down the U.S. military's independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, after nearly two centuries of publication _ but President Donald Trump quickly stepped in and reversed the order.
Hours after Defense Secretary Mark Esper announced the halt in publication, Trump took to Twitter and said Stars and Stripes won't be stopping its presses on his watch.
"The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to Stars and Stripes," Trump tweeted. "It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!"
Trump's intervention effectively scraps Esper's plan, though Congress still needs to allocate funding for the paper.
The president's 11th-hour move came as he's facing intense scrutiny over an explosive Thursday report from The Atlantic that said he told advisers that he didn't want to visit a historic U.S. military cemetery in France during a 2018 trip because the soldiers buried there were "suckers" and "losers."
Trump and his aides are denying the report, though the president has a history of publicly attacking U.S. service members with similar rhetorical bile.
Esper's original order had stated that Stars and Stripes should cease publication by Sept. 30 and dissolve entirely by the end of January. The order came after the Pentagon moved earlier this year to shave the paper's $15.5 million taxpayer-funded allocation from the Defense Department's budget, part of Trump's broader animosity for the media and journalists.
Members of Congress from both sides of the aisle had objected to the defunding move for months.
Senators sent a letter as recently as this week to Esper urging him to reinstate the cash. The letter, signed by 15 senators _ including Republicans and Democrats _ also warned Esper that the department is legally prohibited from canceling a budget program while a temporary continuing resolution to fund the federal government is in effect.
"Stars and Stripes is an essential part of our nation's freedom of the press that serves the very population charged with defending that freedom," the senators said in the letter.
In a separate letter to Esper last month, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of Trump's most loyal allies in Congress, called Stripes "a valued 'hometown newspaper' for the members of the Armed Forces, their families, and civilian employees across the globe." He added that "as a veteran who has served overseas, I know the value that the Stars and Stripes brings to its readers."
In a memo that will now be rescinded, the Pentagon said Esper made the decision to cancel Stripes as a result of his departmentwide budget review.
Before Trump's tweet, Stripes's ombudsman Ernie Gates said that shutting the paper down "would be fatal interference and permanent censorship of a unique First Amendment organization that has served U.S. troops reliably for generations."
The first newspaper called Stars and Stripes was very briefly produced in 1861 during the Civil War, but the paper began consistent publication during World War I. When the war was over, publication ended, only to restart in 1942 during World War II, providing wartime news written by troops specifically for troops in battle.
Although the paper gets funding from the Defense Department, it is editorially independent and is delivered in print and digitally to troops all over the world.
The Pentagon proposed cutting the paper's funding when making its budget request earlier this year, triggering angry reactions from members of Congress.
The House-passed version of the Pentagon budget contains funding for the paper's publication, but the Senate has not yet finalized a defense funding bill.
