Trump says US won't cut funding to military newspaper

US President Donald Trump said on Friday that he won't allow the Pentagon to cut funding to the military's independent newspaper, Stars and Stripes, following an outcry on the part of US lawmakers.

"The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to @starsandstripes magazine under my watch," Trump tweeted. "It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!"

Circulation of the military paper was expected to stop at the end of September, after the Pentagon announced in February that it would halt $15.5 million (€13 million) in funding. The Defense Department had ordered the paper to stop publication by September 30, and dissolve the organization by the end of January.

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Trump's tweet comes a day after The Atlantic reported that he had referred to Marines killed in World War I and buried in a cemetery near Paris, as "losers" and "suckers." According to the report, he also declined to visit the cemetery in 2018 because of concern that the rain that day would mess up his hair.

Trump, who has boasted about his record of helping US veterans, has strongly denied the report.

Earlier this week, 15 lawmakers — including Democrats and Republicans — wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, calling on him to reconsider the closing of the newspaper. 

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The letter warned 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.

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The Trump administration had not spoken out against the plan to shut down the paper before Friday. Esper had defended the decision to defund the newspaper earlier this year.

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Stars and Stripes receives funding from the Defense Department but is editorially independent. The first newspaper called Stars and Stripes was 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, and restarted in 1942 during World War II, providing wartime news written by troops specifically for troops in battle.

lc/dj (AP, Reuters)