Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum toured Alcatraz Island on Thursday to advance President Trump’s proposal to reopen the decrepit former federal prison, saying it would reduce crime by restoring tough consequences for lawbreakers. Local Democratic leaders, who’ve been pressing the administration on tax cuts that will balloon the U.S. debt, described the visit as a boondoggle aimed to distract voters from criticism of White House policies.

Bondi and Burgum met with park police on the island and directed staff to collaborate on plans to rehabilitate and reopen Alcatraz, but didn’t make public remarks. In an exclusive Fox News on-site interview, Burgum said “Alcatraz is the brand known around the world for being effective at housing people that are in incarceration.”

“This is something that we’re here to take a look at,” Burgum said of the deteriorating prison that once housed gangsters Al Capone and George “Machine Gun” Kelly. “It’s a federal property, its original use was a prison, and so part of this would be to test the feasibility about returning it back to its original use.”

Trump in May proposed reconverting Alcatraz — now one of San Francisco’s most visited tourist attractions — into a high-security federal prison for violent offenders. The island is currently part of a national park under the jurisdiction of Burgum’s Interior Department. If re-opened as a prison, the facility itself would be operated by the Bureau of Prisons, which is under Bondi’s DOJ.

The visit drew immediate condemnation from Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker who represents San Francisco, who revealed the tour in a news release Wednesday afternoon.

“With stiff competition, the planned announcement to reopen Alcatraz as a federal penitentiary is the Trump Administration’s stupidest initiative yet,” Pelosi said in a statement.

In the Fox interview, Bondi acknowledged the former prison “needs a lot of work” but said it’s “a terrific facility.” Bondi and Burgum said the prison could be used to house offenders including “dangerous criminals” and “criminal illegal immigrants.” The tour came the same day DOJ requested information on noncitizen jail inmates from sheriffs in San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and Riverside counties.

But reopening the island would be a major undertaking. It remains unclear how the federal government would reclaim the island, which has operated as a park and museum since the early 1970s.

The National Park Service currently maintains the site, which draws more than a million visitors each year. Removing the island’s national park status would require a vote of Congress.

Even if the plan passes the numerous bureaucratic hurdles and regulations before it, construction on the rocky island could be prohibitively expensive.

Pelosi framed the visit as a “diversionary tactic” to draw attention away from his recently passed tax and domestic policy bill that would expand tax cuts while also adding more than $3 trillion to the national debt.

There’s another story that the Trump administration may also be trying to get away from: this week, Bondi has faced scrutiny over her handling of the Jeffrey Epstein case. Frustration has mounted among Trump supporters as well as critics over the administration’s failure to release documents tied to the investigation of Epstein, who was charged with sex trafficking and later found dead in his jail cell in 2019.

Earlier this month, Trump wrote on his social media site Truth Social that he had seen renderings of a new Alcatraz site: “We’re going to look into renovating and rebuilding the famous ALCATRAZ Prison sitting high on the Bay, surrounded by sharks. What a symbol it is, and will be!”

In a statement posted to social media Thursday morning, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie said there was no “realistic plan for Alcatraz to host anyone other than visitors.”

“If the federal government has billions of dollars to spend in San Francisco, we could use that funding to keep our streets safe and clean and help our economy recover,” he said.

Democratic Rep. Kevin Mullin, whose district includes San Mateo County, said Trump’s “administration cares more about sensational headlines than fiscal responsibility.”

“Not only is this proposal infeasible and illegal, it would be extremely costly and irresponsible considering he just tacked on another $4 trillion to our nation’s debt,” Mullin said, adding that “the only person that needs to be locked up in Alcatraz is Trump.”

Alcatraz housed some of America’s most notorious criminals during its 29 years of operation. But local officials and historians have questioned the practical and symbolic implications of converting the island back into a penitentiary.

“It’s nowhere near a functioning island by any means,” said San Francisco historian John Martini previously told this news organization.

The main prison has been deteriorating for years, save for some seismic upgrades that made it safe for visitors. Back in 1962, the Bureau of Prisons weighed making upgrades to the prison, but it would have cost $5 million — or $52 million today.

“The reason it is not a prison now is because of the daunting challenges from six decades ago,” Martini said. “The idea that we’re going to forget all that and pick up where we left off during the JFK administration — let’s just say there will be a lot of challenges.”