Speaker 1: This is Gavin Newsom and this is Escape from Alcatraz. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody for leaving voice messages calling
Speaker 1: into the show. And one of the things that lit
Speaker 1: up the voicemail line this week was Alcatraz. Yes, the Rock,
Speaker 1: Escape from Alcatraz. Here we are I can't even make you,
Speaker 1: cannot make this up. Here we are at the moment,
Speaker 1: this critical moment in American history, and here we are
Speaker 1: with a brand new distraction distraction day in the United
Speaker 1: States of America. And so as a former mayor, it's
Speaker 1: not surprising and yes, governor of the state of California,
Speaker 1: that those calls made their way to the inbox.
Speaker 2: Hi. My name is Tara Trivini. I am a resident
Speaker 2: and I've seen lisas California, loved in California my whole life.
Speaker 2: I wanted to find out if our governor is going
Speaker 2: to react to Trump's claim to wanting to reopen Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: Am.
Speaker 2: I at this point a lot of city says, we're
Speaker 2: just like, what but him to a left field with
Speaker 2: so much crap it's ridiculous. Okay, So yeah, response please,
Speaker 2: that would be amazing. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: First of all, I love I love the question. I
Speaker 3: love the way you phrased the question. I love the
Speaker 3: way you laughed when you left that.
Speaker 1: Voicemail, because I think that's how all of us, I mean,
Speaker 1: the overwhelming majority of us, responded to this.
Speaker 3: I responded quite formally, by.
Speaker 1: The way, with a tweet that said, this was just
Speaker 1: simply distraction day in Washington, d C. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: reopening Alcatraz as a federal prison, but he also asked
Speaker 1: and called for asked the Commerce Department, and called for
Speaker 1: new tariffs on foreign made films. So this is what
Speaker 1: Donald Trump does. He doesn't care if he's the heel
Speaker 1: or the hero, as long as he's the star and
Speaker 1: we're talking about him. And this is why it's so
Speaker 1: important that we sort of distill the essence of what
Speaker 1: Trump is actually communicating, what he's actually doing that has
Speaker 1: a real impact in our lives. So everybody's chasing this,
Speaker 1: It's totally understandable. I totally appreciate the question, and here
Speaker 1: I am responding to it because heck, you know, I'm
Speaker 1: a fifth generation San Francisco from a mayor of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: So what would you expect? How could I not respond
Speaker 1: to this? I think I, by the way, may have
Speaker 1: commented to one reporter that it proposal has the form
Speaker 1: and substance of fog, meaning there is quite literally no
Speaker 1: there there. I'll remind you speaking to know they're there.
Speaker 1: There's no water, there's no operating sewer system. What is
Speaker 1: there is a dilapidated old prison that was designed in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, nineteen thirty three that Bobby Kennedy, not
Speaker 1: junior Bobby Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General of the United States,
Speaker 1: announced in nineteen sixty two that he was going to
Speaker 1: shut down and did actually shut down in nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 1: But I think Donald Trump's mindset is maybe nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: I'm making that up.
Speaker 1: But when the Rock came out, and when Escape from
Speaker 1: Alcatraz sort of iconic movies, and there's sort of an
Speaker 1: indelible sense of place that is attached to Alcatraz.
Speaker 3: It's evocative.
Speaker 1: Al Capone was there, Whitey Bulger was their machine gun.
Speaker 1: Kelly was there, but not many other people were there.
Speaker 1: I think it has a capacity of about three hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty three hundred and thirty six cells. Anyone that's visited,
Speaker 1: and I've been there on multiple occasions. I imagine many
Speaker 1: people watching and listening have as well. It's corroded. You
Speaker 1: have all that salt water intrusion. You've got a place
Speaker 1: that would quite literally doge are you listening, quite literally
Speaker 1: cost hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,
Speaker 1: would be the most expensive federal prison in the system.
Speaker 1: It's completely unnecessary. And again it's all intended to be
Speaker 1: a distraction. So we're focused on this and candidly not
Speaker 1: focused on the real issue, which are these tariffs and
Speaker 1: the impact that's having and wrecking on our economy, and
Speaker 1: how it's impacting small businesses, and it's impacting each and
Speaker 1: every one of you watching and listening in more ways
Speaker 1: on more days than anything else that Donald Trump is
Speaker 1: currently doing. And so that's why I think he did this.
Speaker 1: And I'll just close on this. Don't do this to
Speaker 1: San Francisco and California, and don't do this to tourism.
Speaker 1: It's one of the drivers of tourism in the United States.
Speaker 1: A million plus people I think it's one point two
Speaker 1: million last year came to Alcatraz and the island. I
Speaker 1: think the Park Service that runs it generates sixty million
Speaker 1: dollars a year in revenue. Back to my Doge point,
Speaker 1: this would cost tens of millions of dollars. You have
Speaker 1: to bring people onto the island, the workforce and everything else.
Speaker 1: He specifically directed his Department of Justice, and he directed
Speaker 1: a secretary Bergham, to start to put together.
Speaker 3: A plan of action on this.
Speaker 1: I mean, I pray that they're focused on other things
Speaker 1: and not focused on the folly of this latest distraction.
Speaker 1: And this is about zigging and zagging in a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks, will be a couple of days, maybe a
Speaker 1: couple hours, maybe today, maybe as I speak, there is
Speaker 1: something out there that I'm not looking at that's the
Speaker 1: next day's distraction. And this is what Donald Trump does
Speaker 1: better than anybody else, gets us all talking about something
Speaker 1: so that we're not talking about something else.
Speaker 3: And so the critical thing from my.
Speaker 1: Humble perspective is we've got to focus on what really matters,
Speaker 1: what's essential, and again issue right now for Donald Trump
Speaker 1: that is hurting him more than any other issue. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot and I'm not trying to stack up
Speaker 1: any sort of well, I'm not trying to diminish the
Speaker 1: other issues. But it's the terroriffs the economy. You're, for
Speaker 1: one case, what's happened in the markets. What's not happening
Speaker 1: is it relates to imports, and what's not happening as
Speaker 1: it relates to the kind of certainty that people need
Speaker 1: and small businesses need in order to make decisions. What
Speaker 1: may happen to your school supplies because they're not coming
Speaker 1: into the ports of entry. What may happen, my gosh,
Speaker 1: if it's just a few more months of these tariffs,
Speaker 1: particularly to China, what may happen as it relates to
Speaker 1: your Christmas choice that may not be on the shelves
Speaker 1: later in the year. And Donald Trump is under deep
Speaker 1: pressure on that issue. So I would expect to continue
Speaker 1: to try to relieve some of that pressure in that
Speaker 1: focus by bringing more of this nonsense to bear and
Speaker 1: getting us all to chase these stories.
Speaker 3: And I'll just close. Yeah, we had to chase it.
Speaker 1: I mean, my phone lit up with reporters, people calling
Speaker 1: me saying is this real? Can this be true? What
Speaker 1: are your thoughts on it? Can you stop it? And
Speaker 1: the fact that there were real reporters in real concern,
Speaker 1: frankly concerns me more than anything else. Form absence of fog.
Speaker 1: There's no there there focus on something else. By the way,
Speaker 1: the number of calls that I received, the number of
Speaker 1: voicemails and text messages from reputable reporters all across the country,
Speaker 1: from around the world, from other elected officials saying help,
Speaker 1: what are we going to do?
Speaker 3: Can we stop this? Uh?
Speaker 1: And I told everybody you got it, you cannot. I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to be kidding me. This is going nowhere.
Speaker 1: This is distraction Day in the United States of America. Everybody,
Speaker 1: don't worry about it, don't panic. You're going to be
Speaker 1: on that island as a tourist for decades, decades to come.