Pentagon officials are reportedly weighing whether to fire Max Lederer, the longtime publisher of the military news outlet Stars and Stripes, before he can retire this fall.

According to a Wednesday report by CBS News, Lederer announced to colleagues that he plans to retire on September 30 after 19 years as publisher of Stars and Stripes, citing fundamental differences with the Trump administration. However, Pentagon officials have discussed firing Lederer before that date as part of an effort to overhaul the outlet, which is partly funded by American taxpayers.

Stars and Stripes traces its origins to editions produced by Union soldiers during the Civil War and has published continuously since World War II. It receives about 65 percent of its funding through the Defense Department and has long prided itself on editorial independence from the Pentagon's public affairs operation. Editor-in-Chief Erik Slavin has also spoken publicly about his disagreements with Pentagon leadership.

The outlet's federal funding has drawn political attention before. In 2020, during President Donald Trump's first term, his administration proposed eliminating the newspaper's federal funding, a cut lawmakers from both parties pushed back against before the money was preserved.

In a Tuesday note to staff obtained by CBS News, Lederer wrote that his "philosophy of leadership" and his "understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes" differ in "fundamental ways" from the direction the department's leadership wants for the organization.

Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has publicly pushed to remake the outlet. Posting in January about "bringing Stars and Stripes into the 21st century," Parnell wrote that the department would "modernize its operations, refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon morale, and adapt it to serve a new generation of service members."

The outlet would "focus on warfighting, weapons systems, fitness, lethality, survivability, and ALL THINGS MILITARY," Parnell added. He said there would be "no more repurposed DC gossip columns" and "no more Associated Press reprints." CBS News reported that the outlet no longer uses wire services such as Reuters or the AP.

An average of 1.4 million people see Stars and Stripes each day, mostly online, according to CBS News. Readership has declined from its peaks during World War II, the Cold War, and the Vietnam War, CBS News noted. Print delivery slid from about 7 million annual copies in 2019 to 6.2 million in 2024, according to the network. What remains unresolved is whether the Pentagon acts before Lederer's planned September 30 exit, and how Congress — which stepped in over the outlet's funding in 2020 — responds to the broader overhaul.