UPDATE: A previous version of this article reflected sourced, confirmed reporting that showed Trump had intended to end the print and online run of the publication. Trump has now issued a statement to the contrary, and this article reflects the new information.
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 following is the original text of this article; corrections inline]
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Donald Trump has always shown disdain for our troops, veterans, and Gold Star families, so the bombshell report by The Atlantic wasn’t too surprising, but it was gut-wrenching since he is the Commander in Chief. And while Trump spent Thursday night denying that he called the late Sen. John McCain a “loser,” the president’s tweets tell a different story. Indeed, Trump called McCain a loser, among other things. And the Veterans Choice program Trump repeatedly touts to boast of his support for our troops and veterans, was signed by former President Barack Obama — not the current occupant of the White House.
And now, according to a report by USA Today, the president wants to pull funding from Stars and Stripes, a newspaper for US troops that began in the Civil War and has been serving our soldiers [The president now denies this].
In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that ‘dissolves the Stars and Stripes’ by Sept. 15 including ‘specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.’
‘The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,’ writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo’s author.”
Stars and Stripes reported that a bipartisan group of 15 senators is urging Defense Secretary Mark Esper in a letter to maintain support for the paper, which could be forced to stop publishing by the end of the month without Defense Department funding.
We’re not sure why Trump would pull funding from a top newspaper that serves as a lifeline for our troops. As the Senators stated in the letter, the $15.5 million saved by eliminating the paper’s subsidy would have a “negligible impact” on the whopping Pentagon’s $700 billion budget.
The Atlantic reported that in a 2018 White House planning meeting, Trump asked his staff not to include wounded veterans in an event, on the grounds that spectators would feel uncomfortable in the presence of amputees. “Nobody wants to see that,” he said.
We’re not sure how Trump can maintain any support after that report, but his base seems to stick by him no matter what.
Featured image via Michael Vadon/Flickr, under Creative Commons license 2.0
