The mind-blowingly stupid reason for Trump’s Alcatraz re-opening plan may have been found

Donald Trump randomly ordering the re-opening of Alcatraz prison wasn’t on anyone’s bingo card for 2025. The iconic prison once housed many of America’s most fearsome criminals, and its remote position in the San Francisco Bay surrounded by strong water currents made it all but inescapable.

But Alcatraz closed as a prison in 1963 – more than sixty years ago! In 1972 the island was purchased by the National Park Service, soon re-opening as a museum that’s one San Francisco’s top tourist attractions.

Most people – even die-hard MAGAites- were left baffled by Trump’s announcement. As was quickly pointed out, reverting Alcatraz to a prison would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it back up to code. Beyond that, the reason it shut down in the first place was the high cost of running the place, with saltwater saturation in the air rapidly eroding the buildings and requiring constant maintenance. Plus, returning to a prison would erase a historic and very popular monument.

Now, one eagle-eyed observer has figured out why Trump came up with this bizarre idea and, I hope you’re sitting down, because it’s pants-on-head stupid. On Saturday May 3, Trump was in Mar-a-Lago relaxing. On TV that night on WLRN TV, which broadcasts to South Florida, was the 1979 movie Escape from Alcatraz. So, we’re betting that Trump watched the movie, which sparked a couple of neurons in his brain, which resulted in the order:

Guess what was on TV in South Florida on Saturday night?

The 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz."

The film aired on WLRN TV, a public station that serves all of South Florida, including West Palm Beach. pic.twitter.com/z2ND7Oz5qP

— Molly Ploofkins (@Mollyploofkins) May 5, 2025

To be fair, Escape from Alcatraz is a pretty great Clint Eastwood movie, dramatizing the dramatic real-life escape by inmates Frank Morris and brothers Clarence and John Anglin. That said, if Trump really is this easy to manipulate, maybe the WLRN programming team has more power in their hands than they realize.

As many in the comments pointed out, please do not under any circumstances show Trump The Purge or The Hunger Games, as it’s almost guaranteed he’d identify them as great ideas he should enact immediately. If we need some programming that gives Trump some ideas he should act on, then how about the excellent 2004 movie Downfall, which provides some excellent pointers for how a world leader should act in a stressful situation?