Bulwark Takes - American ‘Squid Game’ Could Be Coming to Gitmo

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Tim Miller and Sam Stein discuss a shocking proposal to turn Guantanamo Bay into a "transformative" city, blending business, tourism, and immigration in what sounds like a mix of 'Squid Game', 'Severance' and 'The Truman Show.'

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Ba-da-ba-ba-ba. Bettering your business takes working with the best. With the James Hardy Alliance, you gain access to leads, training, networking, and support from the number one brand of siding in North America. Achieve new levels of success by joining the James Hardy Alliance today. Hey, guys. It's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bork, and I am joined by Tim Miller for a truly disturbing segment that we're going to talk about. One of the more outlandish and gobsmacking ideas that I've seen. But apparently a memo has been sent to Donald Trump, or at least

to the White House, that is outlining this idea that the United States should turn Guantanamo Bay, where we've had, what is it, a prison camp, more or less, they want to turn it into a transformative, prosperous city, using a prosperous charter city to basically put immigrants into work camps, develop it into a tourism and, I don't know, like tech site, like one of these Middle Eastern cities. Economic engine. Yeah, an economic engine that you can also just kind of check out the Caribbean Sea. Four seasons Guantanamo.

There's so many layers that are so uncomfortable about this entire thing. But apparently it's gotten like the attention of the tech bro set who think it's a great idea. Tim, you read the article, you've seen the charter, or you've seen the proposal. What do you make of it? Shout out to the folks at TIA, the New Republic, for flagging this PowerPoint. Look, I want

to just preface this by saying that unlike some folks, I think the author of the TNR article, I'm not like against the idea of doing crazy new futuristic cities. That sort of thing appeals to me as like whatever capitalist future kind of guy. There's that California forever city, you know, that's very controversial. But there's a lot of left center left people that like it. It's like we got to figure out new ways to break through the old red tape to build big city i'm so i just want to preface this by saying that i'm kind of for the

concept the execution in this case is fucking horrifying i need to credential myself as being for the concept to talk about how insanely horrifying the execution proposal is here and i just want to read one the number one section that makes this so horrifying that the idea is the immigration section, right? Yes. Yes. That is not just for hotels and for whatever business development that this could be a quote immigration solution. This is a general solution. It's just a little close to final solution for me. Just, I just as a wordsmith, well, it's one of the two words. So yeah, it Just as a wordsmith, I recommend staying away from that. Well, it's one of the two words. So, yeah, it's 50% too close.

Yeah, I'd stay away from that. Okay, here we go. I'm just going to read the whole thing. Guantanamo Bay could become an immigration proving ground, enabling the U.S. to safely and humanely accommodate certain migrants from high-skilled talent to asylum seekers while evaluating their contributions to the local economy and society. Those who succeed over a defined period

might earn expedited entry to the mainland. What do we do? We're going to do a squid game at Guantanamo Bay? We got the calipers out? We're going to measure skull size? They said humanely. They said humanely. We're going to see.

We're going to put them through the paces. It's like one week. It's like, can you change tires? We're going to have you change're going to put them through the paces. It's like one week. It's like can you change tires? We're going to have you change tires here. Can you wash windows? Can you do PowerPoints? How's your Excel? There was a line in there where they were like we will be evaluating their contributions.

And I was just like, oh, my God. This is so dystopian. Who is doing the evaluation here? We're sending a memo to Stephen Miller that's like immigration and workforce strategy. Who are the high-skilled people that are going to want to move to Guantanamo Bay for the Guantanamo Bay tech visa? Well, so the idea here – I'm trying to distill it as best I can. The idea here is that they would become a sort of proving ground is their word, but basically the immigrants would want to go to Guantanamo Bay because you'd have the allure of maybe earning some sort of citizenship status that you could then take, maybe live on this

futuristic Guantanamo Bay city, or I don't know, go to the United States, but it's so messed up because you would have to prove yourself. We would only take certain migrants. We would be monitoring them. And then even then it's not clear if they, what kind of status they would get. They called it quote, an ideal sandbox.

What was the movie? Jim Carrey was like in a, his life was a reality show and everybody was watching him. Yeah, the Truman Show. Yeah. Feels like we're doing a migrant Truman Show where everyone's going to watch them. It's going to be like, oh, nice job on the window washing challenge, Javier. You might earn yourself a chance to make it to Tampa. And the whole thing is just like it is sick.

Well, there's a word severance vibe too, right? It's like, yeah, it's all like, so now the other part of it, that's of course, problematic is that it's at Guantanamo, which is like got a very complicated history. And they even address it. They're like, look, we have, we're going to call this freedom cities. They said that we're going to pivot from the site synonymous with post 9-11 controversies to one known for cutting-edge tech and i'm just not sure you can make that pivot that easily it's a hard pivot i think it is it's i guess it's on the beach of cuba i've never been that yet we'll see how things go over the next three years give it time trump might send you there go ahead and give it out um again i'm like i'm open to creative ideas. What was it? What Kramer said? Interesting trades considered.

He said to me, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to fucking bulldoze the whole thing. Right. We're going to create a memorial. We're going to do something. We're going to create like – Will they have a memorial to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed? I don't know.

There will be a nonprofit center there or something. I don't know. Probably not a memorial. Good point. But you know what I mean. We're going to do something to give there or something. I don't know. Probably not a memorial. Good point. But you know what I mean. Like, we're going to do something to give back, right? Whatever. And then we'll sell the land.

And if somebody wants to come and build a resort there, then they could buy it. I think that probably wouldn't succeed. But, like, okay. It's not like the land can never be used for anything ever. But, like, the U.S. government, like, we are going to have a government-owned. You're going gonna go on a government-owned vacation to guantanamo that's the pitch here yeah government-owned vacation not only do you get great beaches decent food you can walk the grounds where khalid shikmahab

was waterboarded who wouldn't want to go uh it feels very hyman rothi from the godfather but with like way more ethically dubious problems and That was pretty ethically dubious to begin with. Count me for no. What ever happened to the internment camps in San Francisco? What's on the land where we put the Japanese internments? That's Sacramento. That'd be interesting to find out. That might be a model to look towards.

Yeah, exactly. Let's not do this. I don't think I'll be visiting. You don't? I just think there's other places. Have you ever been to Cuba? No, I've not been to Cuba. no up until recently you couldn't go so i don't know yeah have you no i've obviously i'm anti-communist so i will not be visiting the cuban islands you're waiting for the freedom city to be constructed until the people of cuba are free not no not not the American autocrat. We're going to show them whose government run city is better.

That's a smart idea. All right, look, this is a lot of fun. A little bit scary. Appreciate you talking me through this.