Pelosi responds to potential visit of AG Bondi to announce Alcatraz reopening plan
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi called the plan to reopen Alcatraz as a prison the Trump administration's "stupidest initiative yet" ahead of a visit by Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.
Bondi and Burgum toured the island on Thursday.
"With stiff competition, the planned announcement to reopen Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary is the Trump Administration's stupidest initiative yet. 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 said.
Back in May, Trump said he was directing the Bureau of Prisons, the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Homeland Security to "reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America's most ruthless and violent Offenders."
Pelosi said Democrats would oppose any plan to reopen the National Park Service site as a prison.
"Should reason not prevail and Republicans bring this absurdity before the Congress, Democrats will use every parliamentary and budgetary tactic available to stop the lunacy," Pelosi said.
CBS News Bay Area reached out to San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie's office and were directed to his statement to news media.
"There's no realistic plan to make Alcatraz reopen as anything other than the wonderful tourist attraction that it currently is. If the federal government want to spend billions of dollars, I want them to spend it on clean and safe streets and San Francisco's economic recovery. Alcatraz draws millions of visitors a year, tens of millions of dollars in economic activity, and that is benefitting San Francisco's recovery. We're on the rise and that's what I'm focused on," Lurie said.
According to a member of Lurie's office, he has no plans to meet with Bondi or Burgum.
Alcatraz was shut down as a prison in 1963 as the costs to operate it were three times more expensive as any other prison, and it has been a National Park Service site since the '70s.
