Will Trump reopen "The Rock"?

NBC's Rory O'Neill reports on the possible reopening of Alcatraz, but is it feasible? It seems to be quite expensive and a logistical nightmare

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We are at six forty five and sixtendo the UTV
and on the Legacy Retirement Group dot com full of
mines right now, remember me seeing news It is Rory O'Neill,
and I don't know why, but we're going to talk
about Alcatraz.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, Rory Chuck good one and not the alligator one.

Speaker 1 (00:13):
Not the Allegator. This is regular Alcatraz, the rock. You know,
the amount of money that I would expect that I
would anticipate that I would guess there would be involved
in bringing that back up to a functional, usable prison, penitentiary,
whatever you want to call it, would be akin to

(00:33):
two billion dollars to redecorate the FED offices. I don't
understand why they're even talking about this. Would do you
know the logic behind it?

Speaker 2 (00:42):
Well? President Trump will say that there's a lot of
symbolism and there's value in that by reopening the most
notorious prison in American history. How is the likes of
people like al Capone. But also keep in mind it's
not very big. It only holds about two hundred and
fifty people, you know, And but Attorney jam Pam Bondy
and Doug Inghram, the Interior secretary toward it yesterday, trying

(01:05):
to see if it's feasible to try to bring back
the Rock as a functioning prison to house the worst
of the worst. As they've said, who will have a
spectacular view by the way from that location if they
get a window that's there.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
You're gonna do thirty five years, but it'll look marvelous.
I don't know if you've ever been in there before,
but I, frankly I have to wonder just going through here.
In Ohio we've got the Mansfield Penitentiary and they actually
do haunted tours at Halloween, just because of the history
of the place. I would think the hair on the
back of my head would stand up walking through Alcatraz,

(01:42):
and I don't know that it would be an outing
for me. I'm not sure how ms Bondi seemed to
have such joy in going up there.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, a lot of it is a publicity's done. I'm
not sure how much of this was sort of a
last minute plan to say, all right, they're not talking
about Epstein this morning, they're talking about Alcatraz instead, So
maybe that's a win. But you know, no final decisions
have been made because Alcatraz is part of a national
park technically legally, so Congresses have to get involved to

(02:13):
first try to change that law and then then get
around to approving the funding for it, which, as you said,
likely to be hundreds of millions, if not a couple
of billion dollars. And then that's just to get it ready,
let alone the costs. It's an expensive prison to run.
Remember this place shut down in nineteen sixty three because
it was three times more expensive to run than all

(02:34):
the other federal prisons. So logically the nineteen sixty three logic,
which should still stand, and do you do.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
You know the reason it was more expensive. I mean,
it's still just a prison, even if it's located in
the you know, on an island. Was it was it
you had to pay people more to work there, or what.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
Was logistical costs? That it was also falling into disrepair,
and I think back to the time it needed something
like eight million dollars in upgrade in nineteen sixty three,
and back then that was real money. So yeah, I
think that was the other reason that they said. But
the costs of running it and the cost that was
necessary to upgrade it in nineteen sixty three made it prohibitive,

(03:14):
and that's why they decided to shut it down.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
And just instinctively, as you watched this and heard them
talking about it and so forth, does it remain a
publicity stuff? Do you think Heart of Hearts Rory, do
you think there's any realism to the possibility of reopening
that place.

Speaker 2 (03:31):
I think the President is certainly going to keep talking
about it now whether or not. Congress goes along. Congresswoman
Nancy Pelosi, speaker of Mereta, that's her district, so, surprise, surprise,
she's against this. Calls it foolhardy. The mayor of San
Francisco says, you're taking away tourism revenue for US one
point five million people go to the Rock each year,
spending tens of millions of dollars on T shirts and

(03:53):
hotels and whatever. So he thinks this is an economic
hit to the area if they put this prison back
in operation, and again, logistically a very difficult place to manage.