President Donald Trump said in a tweet Friday that his administration will not be cutting funding to ‘Stars and Stripes,’ the military newspaper that published its first issue in 1861, according to USA Today.
This comes after a publicized memo hit the presses stating that the Pentagon requested the paper to have a plan to stop publication by September 15 and dissolve by January according to The Hill. (Related:REPORT: Pentagon To Shut Down Military News Service ‘Stars And Stripes’)
Trump said in a tweet Friday afternoon that the “United States will not be cutting off funding to @stars and stripes. ”
“The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!”
The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 4, 2020
The initial plan to cut the longtime publication drew bipartisan scrutiny on Capitol Hill, per the Hill report.
“We urge you to take steps to preserve the funding prerogatives of Congress before allowing any such disruption to take place,” Senators wrote to Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, and reported by The Hill “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.”