Florida Congressman Mocks Trump’s ‘Ridiculous’ Alcatraz Idea, Jokes He Got It From ‘Watching Late-Night Movies’

Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) poked fun at President Donald Trump’s recent suggestion to reopen Alcatraz, pointing out that it sounded like he had gotten the idea from movies.

Trump announced the idea in a Truth Social post over the weekend that raised eyebrows even for a president known for unique and colorful comments.

“REBUILD, AND OPEN ALCATRAZ!” he wrote, adding that he was directing the Federal Bureau of Prisons, FBI, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security “to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”

As numerous commentators pointed out, the BOP closed Alcatraz in 1963 because it was “too expensive to continue operating” as a prison,” with its remote location on an island that lacked fresh water and other resources meaning everything had to be brought there by boat. The BOP’s data showed that the daily per capital cost at Alcatraz was $10.10 in 1959, compared with $3.00 at another federal prison in Atlanta.

As a tourist destination, however, Alcatraz has been on much better financial footing, becoming one of San Francisco’s top attractions and one of the top national park sites in the U.S., bringing in about 1.6 million visitors each year. The challenges from the remote location and costs of preserving the old buildings, wharf, and other structures remain, but it still generates about $60 million in annual revenue.

Moskowitz brought up Trump’s Alcatraz idea during Tuesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing on the BOP, calling the suggestion “just another distraction to divert attention away from the tariffs or rising prices or the struggle on Main Street but since we’re having a hearing on prisons it’s lucky timing for me.”

The congressman pointed out the well-known facts that Alcatraz was more than three times as expensive to operate as other federal prisons when it was shuttered, was over one hundred years old, and would need massive, expensive repairs to be operational once again — questioning how this would be prudent spending “in the age of DOGE where we’re cutting budgets.”

“Have you been to Alcatraz recently?” Moskowitz asked. “It literally is a — it’s a rust box, walking around. You need a tetanus shot just to go into the
building.”

“Do we still give tetanus shots or has RFK gotten rid of those?” he quipped. “I can’t keep up.”

“So listen, where did the president get this idea, all of a sudden, right?” he asked. “Where did he get the idea?”

“Perhaps he was watching Escape from Alcatraz,” he theorized. “Funny part about that, it was actually on television in South Florida. It was on PBS South Florida over the weekend when Trump was at Mar-a-Lago. In fact, he made his announcement just hours after it aired.”

Moskowitz had props, posters of Escape from Alcatraz and The Rock, another film based at Alcatraz, and joked that Trump “was just Netflixing and chilling” and probably liked The Rock — the movie, not the person — because he was “really excited about all these sharks” even though they don’t have frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads. Posters of the wrestler-turned-actor Dwayne Johnson and Dr. Evil from the Austin Powers movies made appearances as well.

“This is just all ridiculous,” Moskowitz continued, “but then all of a sudden, after that, we heard, like — ‘Oh, we’re going to tariff the movies.’ Well, hold on a second. Why would we tariff the movies? This is where the president is getting his ideas from. We can’t tariff the policy idea-making of the presidency. And look, I know what my colleagues are going to say. They’re going to say, ‘Jared, just let the president cook — this is 4D chess he’s playing.’ And I’m going to say, or maybe he’s just watching late-night movies.”

Moskowitz concluded his remarks by noting that Trump had reportedly gotten the idea to tariff movies from Jon Voight, and asked the hearing witnesses who were representing Prison Fellowship and other criminal justice organizations if any of them agreed that Alcatraz should be reopened.

When none of the four witnesses raised their hands, Moskowitz commented that there were “real problems in the prison system” and it did need reform and he believed “we can work on that together, but the president puts out Alcatraz as a distraction.”

Watch the video above via YouTube.