What did Donald Trump do today?

He expanded on his Alcatraz idea, but not where it came from.

On Sunday afternoon, Trump announced on his private microblogging site that he intended to reopen Alcatraz, the island prison in the San Francisco Bay that closed more than 60 years ago, in large part because it was extremely expensive to operate. And while its reputation for being escape-proof was earned—a few prisoners made as far as the water, but none are known to have survived—it was no more secure than any maximum-security prison in the federal system is today.

The news media was quick to jump on the story—which, if you are inclined to give Trump credit for cunning, may have been the idea. Earlier that day, NBC News had aired an interview with him in which he made some politically disastrous comments about tariffs, and followed that up by saying he didn't know if it was his job to uphold the Constitution.

KRISTIN WELKER: Don't you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States as President?

TRUMP: I don't know, uh, I have to respond by saying again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said.

(Trump swore an oath just over 100 days ago promising to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.")

Perhaps with that strategy of distraction in mind, Trump was happy to expand on his thoughts, such as they were, today:

TRUMP: …and it was, a lot of shark bites, a lot of—lot of problems. Nobody's ever escaped from Alcatraz, and, just represented something strong having to do with law and order—we need law and order in this country. And so we're going to, uh, look at it, some of the people up here are going to be working very hard on that, and, uhh, we had a little conversation, I think it's going to be very interesting, we'll see if we can, uhh, bring it back—enlarged form, add a lot. But I think it represents something, uh, right now, it's, uh, a big hulk that's sitting there rusting and rotting, uhh, very, uhh—you look at it, sort of a [unintelligible] —you saw that picture that was put out, it's sort of—amazing. But it's, it sort of represents something that's horrible and beautiful and strong and miserable, weak—it's got a lot of, it's got a lot of qualities that are interesting, and I think they make a point.

However, there is another explanation for Trump's sudden fascination with Alcatraz: South Florida's PBS affiliate had showed the 1979 Clint Eastwood movie Escape from Alcatraz movie the night before and again Sunday morning.

With any other president this might be a stretch, but Trump is not only a movie buff, he's extremely easily swayed by what he sees on TV, and during his first term treated the Fox News morning show Fox and Friends as a kind of kitchen cabinet, calling in unprompted and rambling for up to an hour at times. More than 20 on-air Fox personalities successfully "auditioned" for roles in the second Trump administration, including several cabinet posts. Lobbyists have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running ads targeting him alone on TV shows Trump is known to watch.

This coming Saturday's WLRN-TV schedule features a rebroadcast of Escape from Alcatraz, but also a showing of another 1979 classic, The Great Train Robbery. At present the Trump administration is not expected to announce any policy changes regarding rail security… but stay tuned.

Why does this matter?

• It's very bad if the best case scenario is that a president is just acting on any idea that pops into his head, no matter where it came from.