Bulwark Takes - Tim Miller: MAGA Influencers’ Glee Over “Alligator Alcatraz” Is So Gross

Episode Date: July 1, 2025

Tim Miller joins Chris Jansing to discuss the disturbing “Alligator Alcatraz,” a new ICE detention center in the Florida Everglades. They discuss the cruelty behind the project and the grotesque MAGA merch boom surrounding it, including Benny Johnson already showing off the hats.  Watch Chris Jansing Reports on MSNBC

Hey everybody, Tim Miller from The Bulwark here. I was just on MSNBC with Chris Jansing and we were talking about this supposed so-called alligator Alcatraz, this new ICE detention center in the Everglades. And I wanted to share the conversation with you. I got to tell you, Chris really kind of brought me down. This doesn't usually happen on TV, but I hadn you know some of the details around how Let's just be blunt how excited Maga voters are I guess about this detention center in the fucking swamp How people are buying t-shirts? Little hats I was talking with cam about this because Benny Johnson on one of his feeds wearing an alligator Alcatraz hat. It's just like

It is so dark and so cruel. It's so gross on so many levels It's like that we are screwing with this natural habitat like to just because we want to create some 80s action movie Detention Center to create some 80s action movie detention center for people, some of whom I am going to presume are not even violent criminals. It is deeply disheartening. So we talked about that with Chris Chancing. We talked about the reaction of the Cuban community in Florida, which I think might

become a problem for Trump. And, um, you know, I, what I, what I didn't get into as much as I wanted was just how, how sick it is, uh, just how sick it is that this is the priority, that this is what these guys are doing. And, um, and I just, I hope they feel bad about themselves, at least some of them, but there's not really, not really a lot of expectation on that front, particularly when it comes to Ron Desync Demonious. So there you go. This one's going to be a little dark.

But it's, you know, it shook me. And I think that everybody has got to be clear eyed about this and not just not just drift into this place of like, oh, you know, going along with the gag because real lives are at stake here and this is a bad one. So stick around me, Chris Jansen, discussing the alligator Alcatraz. After touring the controversial new migrant detention center known as alligator Alcatraz in the Florida Everglades is speaking. He was there in the sea of tents and trailers. The state stood up in just eight days and could now one day hold up to 5,000 people who are facing deportation. The president and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis seeming to

delight in how the natural environment of a swamp, the wildlife that comes with it as well, would make it difficult for anyone trying to escape. Snakes are fast, but alligators are big. We're going to teach them how to run away from an alligator, okay? If they escape prison. How to run away. Don't run in a straight line.

Run like this. And you know what? Your chances go up about 1%. They ain't going anywhere once they're there unless you want them to go somewhere. Because good luck in the civilization. So the security is amazing. But what... Natural and otherwise. Well, some laughing there, but critics argue there's nothing funny about keeping people in what they say are hellish conditions, especially in a state where, as the Miami Herald reports,

five people have died in ICE custody since January. The latest, a 75-year-old Cuban man who came to the United States nearly six decades ago, but died after three weeks in detention. That death now under investigation. Tim Miller is back with us. You know, when you hear those remarks from the president and Governor DeSantis, is the threat of cruelty the point here, a deterrent? I think so.

The whole thing is extremely dehumanizing. Trump and DHS have, and Ron DeSantis frankly have treated immigrants and migrants in a dehumanizing way and I think that they Definitely want to scare People that are in the country and you know don't have a formal legal status They want people to self-deport and they've said that Kristi Noem is running ads encouraging people to self-deport like these stories You know there you're talking about people that are not hardened criminals. And on the one hand, like with the recent exception in New Orleans, like hardened criminals don't get out of prisons. Like you don't need a scary, you know, action movie alligator prison. Like

that's not an issue. What we're talking here is about detaining people and they've been detaining a lot of people who are not violent criminals. They are detaining people that have allegedly committed immigration infractions. And this man, this Cuban man that you mentioned, the idea that somebody that's been here for 60 years needs to be held in a cell, for what? There's no security rationale for that. You're not worried about risk of flight. You want these people to self-deport. So the only reason to do it is what you're saying, to try to intimidate, to try to encourage others to deport. And

it's a really un-American policy that these guys are instituting. What it has, though, Tim, been big plus for the MAGA base. I mean, the Florida Republican Party is selling all kinds of alligator Alcatraz merchandise. There you see some of the t-shirts. They've got hats. One Florida Republican Party official said that the traffic to their website and the donation links have skyrocketed by 400 to 500 percent.

So why at this point would they pause or slow down what they're doing? Now you're just trying to depress me on midday cable news, Chris? I'm just stating the facts. Just stating the facts, Tim Miller. I guess some people are attracted to you cruelty and trolling. That's certainly not any, you know, it's certainly something we've seen. It's certainly something we've seen from the MAGA base in particular, but it's something that's human nature to a certain level. I'd say this, the one part of the MAGA base that I think is not

maybe as fully on board with the alligator Alcatraz is that Cuban community. There have been a lot of raids happening in the Cuban community in South Florida. There's shut down a lot of the USAID programs that was helping Cuban expats. So while I think the hardened mega base, the people that are very online on social media and like to insult and be cruel to migrants might be excited about alligator alcatraz.

I think there's another element of the Trump voting block there for whom this is more of a mixed bag.