The president’s 2021 budget did not include funding for the publication.
President Trump tweeted Friday afternoon that Stars and Stripes, the military’s editorially independent newspaper, which has operated since the Civil War, will not be defunded. His 2021 budget, however, did not include funding for the publication, putting it on course to end its 159-year-long run on September 30. “The United States of America will NOT be cutting funding to (Stars and Stripes) magazine under my watch,” Mr. Trump tweeted Friday. “It will continue to be a wonderful source of information to our Great Military!” According to USA Today, the Pentagon had ordered the paper to shut down by September 30, the end of the 2020 fiscal year. A memo sent by Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., Director of the Defense Media Activity at Fort Meade, Maryland, said the publication, which provides news to soldiers around the world, would be dissolved by September 15, with its last issue coming at the end of the month, reported USA Today. The Pentagon’s decision to cut the newspaper came earlier this year, when the department stripped its funding in the Defense Department budget request submitted in February, Stars and Stripes noted. “The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30,2020,” Haverstick Jr.
