Joy Reid: Trump urges Congress to kill press freedom bill ahead of second term

This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 21 episode of “The ReidOut.”

Matt Gaetz’s withdrawal from President-elect Donald Trump’s attorney general consideration came as a result of leaks. There were leaks to the media about the investigation into allegations he engaged in sexual misconduct involving a 17-year-old girl. There were leaks of new information about his Venmo payments to young women and new details about his alleged encounters. (Gaetz has denied having sex with a minor and was not charged by the Justice Department.)

The reality is leaks are how some of the biggest scandals in history have been uncovered.

The top-secret Pentagon Papers exposed America’s disastrous Vietnam policy. Leaks from “Deep Throat” to The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward exposed the Watergate scandal and took down President Richard Nixon.

A leak is also how we found out about the conservative-majority Supreme Court’s plans to overturn Roe v. Wade. Back then, Trump’s answer to getting to the bottom of that leak was to threaten journalists with prison rape:

“You take the writer and/or the publisher of the paper … and you say, ‘Who is the leaker? National security,’” Trump told the crowd at a rally in Texas in 2022.

“And they say ‘We’re not gonna tell you.’ They say ‘That’s OK, you’re going to jail.’ And when this person realizes he’s going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly, he will say, ‘I’d very much like to tell you exactly who that leaker is!’”

That’s a rather unsubtle and disgusting way to keep a politician’s nastiest secrets hidden. Since then, Trump has repeatedly called journalists “the enemy of the people.” He has threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of outlets he disagrees with. And during his first term, he weaponized the Justice Department to secretly obtain reporters’ phone records.

There’s actually a bipartisan solution to help protect journalists from that kind of government spying: the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act, or PRESS Act. The legislation would prevent the government from forcing journalists to reveal their sources.

It passed the House unanimously back in January. But now, with Trump’s second term just weeks away, the president-elect has told Senate Republicans to let the bill die. On Wednesday, Trump shared a report about the details of the bill with the order that “REPUBLICANS MUST KILL THIS BILL!”

That bill would have a chilling effect. It’s designed to make journalists afraid to report things — and to keep them from exposing what we might encounter during Trump’s return to the White House.

Allison Detzel contributed.