President Donald Trump amplified inflammatory claims by his chief aide Stephen Miller to justify his plan to reopen the Alcatraz prison.
Miller, the White House chief of staff and rumored candidate for national security adviser, told Fox News host Laura Ingraham that the president's plan, which he admitted came from watching a movie about the long-shuttered prison, would be necessary to handle some of the nation's worst criminals.
“There are people in this country, as President Trump has said, who will do nothing with their lives but rape, maim, and murder," Miller told Ingraham. "They cannot be rehabilitated, they cannot be saved, they cannot be coached into some better way of living.“
He said the re-opened prison would house "villains and monsters.”
"They are always going to hurt, they are always going to steal, they are always going to attack," Miller added. "We need a place in this country where we can send people to visually demonstrate the total separation from society — the fact that they are not going to live among us and will never live among us.”
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The president posted a video clip of Miller's appearance on his Truth Social account Tuesday around 2 a.m. EST, just hours after he revealed that his idea to reopen the prison, which was closed in 1963 due to its high maintenance costs and has become a popular tourist destination and national park, had come from watching television.
“I was supposed to be a moviemaker,” Trump said. “It represents something very strong, very powerful in terms of law and order … Alcatraz is, I would say, the ultimate. Sing Sing and Alcatraz, right? The movies.”
A South Florida PBS station aired the 1979 Clint Eastwood film "Escape from Alcatraz" on Saturday evening, while Trump was staying at his Mar-a-Lago resort home.