Pelosi slams Trump Alcatraz plan as ‘stupid’ ahead of reported Bondi visit

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — Amid ongoing rumblings from President Donald Trump about his outlandish plan to reopen Alcatraz as a prison, a delegation of administration officials is reportedly set to visit the island Thursday. According to Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, whose agency the purview of the island falls under, and Attorney General Pam Bondi will visit the former prison.

According to Pelosi, the two will announce a plan to reopen the island as a federal penitentiary for the first time since it was closed by then-AG Robert F. Kennedy in 1963.

Pelosi is one of many officials to have slammed the proposed plan.

“With stiff competition, the planned announcement to reopen Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary is the Trump Administration’s stupidest initiative yet,” Pelosi said. “It should concern us all that clearly the only intellectual resources the Administration has drawn upon for this foolish notion are decades-old fictional Hollywood movies.”

Pelosi may have been referring to the 1979 Clint Eastwood film, “Escape from Alcatraz,” which Trump reportedly may have watched just prior to initially floating the idea of reopening the former prison.

The Trump delegation’s visit to Alcatraz, which has for decades been a national park and popular tourist attraction, comes at a time when the president appears increasingly desperate to change the subject from the ongoing flap around the Epstein files. On Thursday, Trump ally Laura Loomer warned that the administration’s handling of the Epstein case could “consume” Trump’s presidency.

Pelosi, for her part, dismissed the Alcatraz visit as a diversion.

“Make no mistake: this stupidity is a diversionary tactic to draw attention away from the Administration’s cruelest actions yet in their Big, Ugly Law, which takes away food from children and rips health care from millions to give tax breaks to billionaires.”

Alcatraz was closed back in the 1960s due to the exorbitant cost of operating it. Its remote location as an island in the middle of San Francisco Bay mean that everything from food, to water, to fuel, had to be brought in by boat. Already crumbling at the time, it was estimated that bringing the prison up to standards would require between $3 to $5 million in restoration work — the equivalent of at least $32 million in today’s dollars.

“It remains to be seen how this Administration could possibly afford to spend billions of dollars to maintain Alcatraz as a prison when they are already adding trillions of dollars to the national debt with their sinful law,” Pelosi said. “Should reason not prevail and Republicans bring this absurdity before the Congress, Democrats will use every parliamentary and budgetary tactic available to stop this lunacy.”

Transferring Alcatraz from under the control of the Department of Interior would be legislatively challenging. It would require legislation to be proposed and passed by a two-thirds majority in Congress in order to repeal the island’s environmental protections, before it could then be transferred to the Bureau of Prisons.

KRON4 has reached out to San Franciso Mayor Daniel Lurie, the United States Department of Justice and Alcatraz for more information.