Trump says he won’t allow Stars and Stripes newspaper to fold

President Trump on Friday said the government-owned Stars and Stripes military newspaper won’t close on his watch after a Pentagon memo ordered the long-running paper to cease operations.

“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!” Trump tweeted.

Earlier Friday, news outlets published a memo that ordered the paper’s publisher to develop a plan that “dissolves the Stars and Stripes” by Sept. 15 and includes “specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”

Stars and Stripes, created during the Civil War, receives $15.5 million annually from the government.

The memo written by Col. Paul Haverstick Jr. said: “The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020.”

Trump’s swift public intervention comes as he and allies strongly deny a report in The Atlantic that claims he made derogatory remarks about military service and referred to war dead as “suckers.” Many administration officials went on the record to dispute a series of accounts presented in that article.