Trump reverses Pentagon move to close military newspaper amid blowback from veterans

Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inbox Get our free Inside Washington email Get our free Inside Washington email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Defending himself against several corroborated reports that he insulted military personnel, veterans and war dead as “losers” and “suckers” while in office, the president – reportedly prompted by White House staff after reviewing press coverage of the publication’s potential demise – said he’s reversing the decision. Stars and Stripes, an editorially independent newspaper funded through the US Department of Defence, has published for nearly 160 years – from its founding by Union soldiers on the brink of the US Civil War through endless wars abroad – often provoking leadership with a “grunt’s”-eye view of the military and its brass. Before the president’s apparent intervention, a bipartisan group of senators urged Defence Secretary Mark Esper to continue funding the newspaper, an “essential part of our nation’s freedom of the press that serves the very population charged with defending that freedom,” they wrote. Outlined in February, the Defence Department’s 2021 budget proposal would cut $15.5m from the newspaper – roughly half the newspaper’s annual budget, with the remainder covered through subscriptions and A group of four Republicans and 11 Democrats requested that Secretary Esper “rescind” his “decision to discontinue support for Stars and Stripes” and “reinstate the funding necessary for it to continue operations.” In a separate letter to Secretary Esper sent at the end of August, Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a former Air Force Reserve lawyer who retired at the rank of colonel, expressed his support for the publication.