Jared Moskowitz Floats Surprising Theory Of Where Trump's Alcatraz Proposal Came From

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At Tuesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing, Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) tore into President Trump's Alcatraz proposal.

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00:00unanimous consent. Without objection. Thank you so much. This is the GAO report that says that there

00:06was a 33 percent decrease in non-citizens incarcerated. Without objection. From 2017 to

00:1122. Thank you. I now recognize Mr. Moskowitz from the great state of Florida. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

00:18Before I begin I have a unanimous consent request. Without objection. I ask unanimous consent to

00:23enter into the record an article by Emma Buecher titled Doge Musk oversight of federal workforce

00:29causing frustration for FCI Thompson staff. Without objection. I have another unanimous

00:34consent. Without objection. You want me to read it or? Not really but go ahead. Do I text it to you

00:41later? All right so unanimous consent requests obviously. I'll give them to you Mr. Chairman.

00:51I'll skip that. All right let's begin on my time. So thank you Mr. Chairman and you know I appreciate

00:58this hearing and it's always a pleasure to go after Chairman Jordan. And you know I've been

01:04listening to my colleagues talking about investment personnel shortages and of course we're talking

01:11about that in a time where Doge has its fingerprints over all the agencies including your own. So at a

01:17time where we're talking about personnel shortages we're actually firing people. We're convincing

01:21them to leave. We're retiring them. Right? And don't get me wrong like you guys need more resources.

01:28Right? You need more people. You got crumbling infrastructure. Right? We need to be tough on crime.

01:33Tough on criminals. I get all that. And there's definitely need to be serious reforms. Right? This is a

01:38serious conversation. But you know I earlier I was listening to the ranking member and she brought up

01:44something about Trump talking about Alcatraz. And of course look this is just another distraction

01:51to divert attention away from the tariffs or rising prices or the struggle on Main Street.

01:57But since we're having a hearing on prisons it's lucky timing for me. So three times more expensive

02:05than any prison to operate in 1959 Alcatraz was. Okay? It needs about 250 million dollars to shore up the

02:12infrastructure and utilities. All food and water has to be barged in. Sewage has to be barged out.

02:18The facility is almost a hundred years old. And so I don't get it. In the days of Doge where we're

02:24cutting budgets we got to find savings. Now we're going to what? We're going to cut Medicaid and SNAP

02:29so that we can pour money into Alcatraz. First of all have you been to Alcatraz recently? It literally

02:36is a it's a rust box walking around. You need a tetanus shot just to go into the building. Do we still

02:42give tetanus shots or has RFK gotten rid of those? I can't I can't keep up. And so listen

02:49where did the president get this idea all of a sudden? Right? Where did he get the idea? Perhaps

02:55he was watching Escape from Alcatraz. Right? And I brought boards because some people are visual

03:00learners. Perhaps he was watching Escape from Alcatraz by by Clint Eastwood. Actually funny part

03:06about that. It was actually on television in South Florida. It was on PBS South Florida

03:12over the weekend when Trump was at Mar-a-Lago. In fact he made his announcement just hours after

03:19it aired. You know PBS. The programming that he's trying to get rid of. So just in case you're

03:24keeping up. Right? It's two dolls for girls and zero Elmo's. Okay? But maybe maybe I'm wrong. Maybe

03:32it wasn't. Maybe it wasn't that. Maybe he was watching The Rock with Sean Connery. You know this

03:37one. This is where Sean Connery goes back to Alcatraz because he originally escaped Alcatraz and

03:44needed like an expert on on chemical weapons. Maybe the president was just Netflixing and chilling like

03:50watching watching watching watching The Rock which is not to be confused with The Rock. Right? That's a

03:54different that's a different person. And then the president's really excited about these sharks.

03:59Right? He's talking about all the sharks and the person escaped. He lost his clothing. So you know

04:03sharks they don't have laser beams on. They don't have laser beams but maybe maybe maybe the sharks

04:08are are going to be there. So this is just all ridiculous. But even but then all of a sudden after

04:16after that we we heard like oh we're going to tariff the movies. Well hold on a second.

04:23Why would we tariff the movies? This is where the president is getting his ideas from. We can't tariff

04:29the the policy idea making of the presidency. And look I know what my colleagues are going to say.

04:35They're going to say Jared just let the president cook. This is 40 chess he's playing. And I'm going to

04:42say maybe he's just watching late night movies. Perhaps he's just watching late night movies. In

04:47fact we're we're told he got this movie tariff idea from another no other than John Voight. You know

04:54the guy who was in that great movie Andaconda. I don't know if you've you've seen that. And so this

05:00is the ridiculousness that's going on. So I want to end with this. Mr. Perl you run a faith-based

05:06organization. Right? No? Oh it's Mr. Wilde. You run a faith-based organization. Sorry. You think

05:13you think it's a good idea to reopen Alcatraz? You think the faith-based community has been pounding

05:17the table to reopen Alcatraz? Prison fellowship stance is that prisons should be safe, effective,

05:24efficient, and uphold human dignity. Okay let me make it easier for you. All four of you. Which one of

05:28you think we should reopen Alcatraz? Just raise your hand. Okay so for my colleagues who sometimes

05:35you know are a little slow. No one raised their hand. Okay nobody. Not a single witness. None of

05:42your witnesses here think we should reopen Alcatraz. And so you know we have real problems in the prison

05:50system. It does need reform. It does need money. We can work on that together. But the president puts

05:55out Alcatraz as a distraction. Thank you. The gentleman yields. I am going to yield to myself.

06:03You know I had prepared remarks. But before we get into them so much has been said

06:08on the other side. I just want to address some of that. First of all I want to

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