Trump wants to kill PRESS Act. It could be his best friend.

About-to-be-encore President Donald Trump’s demand that the Senate kill the bipartisan PRESS Act should spur lawmakers to send it to current President Joe Biden pronto ‒ especially the senators who most want Trump to succeed.
Trump’s peremptory order (requesting is not his modus operandi), blasted out on his very own Truth Social media platform, comes as no surprise: Unless it was a friendly tabloid shilling his latest financial or romantic exploit, the onetime celebrity real estate mogul has never liked the news media ‒ or any person or entity that might crimp his take-no-prisoners style.
Which is precisely why the people who want to protect the incoming president from his worst impulses should do what they can now to shore up those in the best position to tackle the job: journalists and their sources. Whether he knows it or not, or likes it or not, a free and independent press can be Trump’s best friend.
For a case in point, look no further than the just-imploded nomination of attorney general-designee Matt Gaetz.
Team Trump professed outrage over the leak of the document showing the web of payments that law enforcement officials traced involving Gaetz and a mysterious network of women, along with one admitted sex trafficker.
Opinion:Gaetz withdraws as AG nominee. Senate Republicans just saved Trump from himself.
But the leaker did the president-elect a huge and I mean yuuuge favor: How much better for Gaetz to step down early, rather than expose the incoming administration (and the nation) to the spectacle of this dirty laundry drip-drip-dripping out to dry in a confirmation hearing?
This is exactly the kind of whistleblowing that the PRESS Act is designed to protect.
Approved by the House unanimously in January, the bill would strictly limit the federal government’s ability to subpoena or seize reporters’ notes and other news gathering material.
It would also curtail the federal government’s practice (under presidents of both parties) of strong-arming telephone companies and other communications platforms into giving up journalists’ call records and other data that might identify sources.
The PRESS Act’s name stands for Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying. The measure is also known as “the reporters’ shield law.” Both are misnomers.
What’s at stake here is not the freedom of the press to publish ‒ it’s your freedom to speak to the press, and to do so without fear of reprisals.
And we’re not talking only about the freedom of federal employees to talk about misdeeds of their bosses; we’re talking about people who work for your city hall or your local board of education to speak up about wrongdoing they see.
Opinion:Democracy is not an easy ride. Choose pursuit of happiness.
Many Trump supporters who have talked to my Missouri School of Journalism students lean libertarian. They have a healthy suspicion of big government and centralized authority.
A number are reluctant Trumpers: They like some aspects of the president-elect’s policy plans ‒ or dislike those of the Democrats ‒ but they go out of their way to say they are put off by Trump’s personal excesses.
The best way to curb the excesses of those in power is with a robust system of checks and balances. Although the past few weeks have produced some signs of vertebrate life in the Senate, too many members of the president’s party seem to be intimidated by his power and popularity to make Congress a reliable bulwark.
That leaves the press and the whistleblowers to serve as watchdogs over an executive who, even some of his supporters would acknowledge, needs watching over.
The PRESS Act will protect news organizations and news sources no matter what their ideological bent. It is not a partisan issue. Last month, more than 100 news organizations ‒ including Gannett, the owner of USA TODAY, and Fox News ‒ signed a letter urging Congress to pass the PRESS Act.
Washington, D.C., and 49 states have enacted some form of this (to quote the letter) “reasonable, common-sense measure.” Government transparency and free press advocates have been trying to enact a federal version for years ‒ at least since Trump’s first vice president, Mike Pence, was in Congress and served as the bill’s sponsor.
If Trump’s second term is to be successful, the president-elect will need some people around who can tell him uncomfortable truths. Reporters will be in a better position to serve that role with a guarantee the government can’t declare open season on their sources.
So, Congress: Enact the PRESS Act to support our incoming president. We all behave better when we know somebody’s watching ‒ and able to speak about what they have seen.
Kathy Kiely is the Lee Hills Chair in Free Press Studies for the Missouri School of Journalism and a former USA TODAY reporter.