MANILA, Philippines — US President Donald Trump reversed a decision to shut down a long-running newspaper for troops after drawing widespread criticism amid initial reports of the move.
"The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to [Stars and Stripes] under my watch. It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!" Trump said in a tweet on September 5.
This comes after several news outlets reported that the US Department of Defense or the Pentagon ordered the shutdown of the Stars and Stripes, a newspaper funded by US Congress which has been delivered to American troops on the frontlines for over a century and a half.
A Pentagon memo first obtained by USA Today directed the news organization's publisher to craft a plan that “dissolves the Stars and Stripes” by September 15 and a "specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”
Following the report, a bipartisan group of senators, including close Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), sent a letter to the Pentagon urging that funding for the paper be reinstated.
In its website, the Stars and Stripes says it has distributed over seven million copies of its US Weekly edition.
"In May 2004 Stars and Stripes began offering its newspaper in a digital edition, available at stripes.com to anyone in the world with access to the Internet. Today all editions are available as PDF downloads," the publication added.
The newspaper is known for maintaining editorial independence despite being run from the US Department of Defense, and has been critical of the American military on several occasions.
Stars and Stripes won the George Polk Award in 2010 for its reporting on the public relations firm that the Defense Department used to push reporters to write favorably about the war in Afghanistan.
A story by the publication in 2015 also revealed that NBC News anchor Brian Williams was exaggerating his experience on reporting in Iraq.
Trump calls fallen, captured soldiers, 'losers and suckers'
Just a day before the story on the looming shutdown of the Stars and Stripes first broke, The Atlantic reported that Trump in 2018 called fallen troops laid to rest in an American cemetery near Paris "losers" and "suckers."
At the time, Trump blamed the rain and the Secret Service for his canceled visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery but The Atlantic said four people "with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day" said he was actually worried that the rain would ruin his hair and that he thought it unimportant to honor the American war dead.
While the American president has denied these allegations, several news outlets have confirmed the facts of the report, including a journalist from Fox News, an outlet which has been extremely favorable towards Trump and his presidency.
Many were also quick to recall Trump's previous comments about former Republican presidential candidate and late Sen. John McCain, whom he disparaged for being captured and taken prisoner by the North Vietnamese for over five years.
While campaigning for the presidency in 2015, Trump said of McCain: "He's not a war hero," and "I like people who weren't captured."