Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
President Donald Trump recently tweeted, “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!”
The events leading up to this tweet have been confusing.
Did the Pentagon or Trump shut down Stars and Stripes, a decision that Trump later reversed?
Stars and Stripes is a venerable military funded yet independent news outlet for service members.
The Stars and Stripes story broke in the wake of an Atlantic magazine article in which several, unnamed, but apparently authoritative figures said Trump called fallen military personnel “losers” and “suckers,” as he resisted a visit to a World War I graveyard in France.
Trump’s response to the Atlantic piece was a vehement denial.
But then came the Stars and Stripes issue. One day, Stars and Stripes was off the Pentagon budget and the next day, Trump restored it.
All media, including Fox news, however, connected Trump’s decision to fund Stars and Stripes with the Atlantic article and Trump’s reaction to that story.
Newsweek implied Trump was behind the proposed closure of Stars and Stripes. The first paragraph of its report says, “Pentagon officials have ordered the independent military newspaper Stars and Stripes to stop publishing by the end of September, as President Donald Trump’s popularity with the troops has seen a decline.”
The implication is that Trump cut funding for Stars and Stripes to punish them for not liking him.
National Public Radio and the New York Times, however, said the Pentagon made the decision with no direct Trump involvement.
Both quoted Stars and Stripes spokespersons who linked Trump’s disregard for media with military officials who had been looking for a reason to shut down Stars and Stripes, which is not always friendly to military brass.
The Atlantic story, which did not have a single named source for its most damning information, was written by Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic’s editor in chief, who would stake the magazine’s reputation on its veracity.
Later, The Associated Press and even a Fox News reporter, Jennifer Griffin, said they verified some of The Atlantic’s information.
The denials, however, have also been forceful. Former National Security Adviser John Bolton, no fan of Trump, said he was part of the entourage in France and heard no disparaging remarks from Trump about fallen military personnel. Others who were there also said they never heard such statements from Trump.
The article said that as Trump and retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, now a former Trump chief of staff, visited the grave of Kelly’s son at Arlington National Cemetery, Trump said about Kelly’s son and the other fallen military personnel, “I don’t get it. What’s in it for them?”
Trump has named Kelly, whom he seems to dislike intensely, as a likely source of the information.
As of Monday, Kelly has been silent.
Steve Hansen writes for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: