Have We Seen the Last Of ‘Alligator Alcatraz?’

Hello it’s the weekend. This is The Weekender ☕️

The last detainees inside the grim “Alligator Alcatraz” immigrant detention camp spearheaded by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are reportedly set to leave the facility. 

According to the Associated Press, in an Aug. 22 email to a local religious leader about potential chaplaincy services at the site, Florida Department of Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said, “we are probably going to be down to 0 individuals within a few days.”

That admission came after a federal judge in Miami issued an order that called for federal and state officials to remove detainees from the site in response to a suit filed by environmental groups and a local Native American tribe. While that case was focused on the impact of the camp on the indigenous community and protected areas of the Everglades, there have also been questions and legal challenges related to the conditions at the facility including allegations of insufficient access to attorneys and inhumane treatment. 

When asked about the matter by reporters, DeSantis, who has been eager to support President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda, suggested the removal of detainees from the camp was the result of a “decision” by the Department of Homeland Security. However, the governor also conceded that the litigation may have had “an influence.”

TPM has chronicled the controversial detention camp since it was officially opened last month, including reporting on how the rushed construction involved nine figure costs and diverted disaster resources, diplomatic drama, and a look at the case that seems to have caused the current shutdown. 

At the moment, it is unclear whether “Alligator Alcatraz” will remain empty. Attorneys for the state almost immediately indicated they planned to file an appeal. Either way, the larger Trump detention camp system shows no signs of slowing down. Officials are working on unconventional facilities with similarly heartless nicknames in other states around the country. One site in Texas was previously used as an internment camp for Japanese Americans in World War II. 

The “Alligator Alcatraz” grifting, which has included merch inspired by the camp’s grisly nickname, also isn’t stopping. According to veteran Florida statehouse reporter Peter Schorsch, DeSantis’ political action committee sent out a fundraising pitch based on the judge’s order that suggested donations could help keep the site open. Of course, the government legal fight can’t be conducted with political funds, which led Schorsch to dub the pitch “disgraceful.”

“It is keen insult to people’s intelligence that @RonDeSantis thinks they will believe that giving to Ron’s political action committee is going to help to keep Alligator Alcatraz open,” Schorsch said.  

If this truly is the end of “Alligator Alcatraz,” the camp is going down with one last grift-y gasp. 

— Hunter Walker

Here’s what else TPM has on tap this weekend:

• An update on RFK Jr.’s promise to solve autism by September. Spoiler: He thinks he’s still on track.
• The Trump White House finally acted on what it has long threatened as it looks for ways to mount a legal challenge against the Impoundment Control Act — it sent Congress a “pocket rescission,” a loophole that OMB Director Russ Vought believes allows the executive branch to not spend funds that have already been appropriated by Congress.
• New clues as to how E.J. Antoni — a problematic Heritage Foundation economist and Project 2025 author who has proposed halting the monthly jobs report and replacing it with quarterly data — came to be appointed to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Let’s dig in.

RFK Jr. Still Thinks He Will Figure Out Cause of Autism in September

In case you were getting worried, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claims he is still on track to identify “interventions” that are “certainly causing autism” and how to address them by … next month. 

RFK Jr.’s assertion came in response to a question from President Trump earlier this week asking for a progress update during a Cabinet meeting.

“We are doing very well,” he said. “We will have announcements as promised in September, finding interventions, certain interventions, now that are clearly almost certainly causing autism. And we’re going to be able to address those in September.”

You’ll remember, earlier this year, RFK Jr. announced that the NIH would start a “series of new studies to identify precisely what the environmental toxins are that are causing it.” (In reality, it appears he might have been referring to HHS’ attempts to resurrect a mass data-collecting program, a version of which Congress had previously expressed “serious reservations” about, as TPM reported earlier this month.)

“This is coming from an environmental toxin, and somebody made it and put that environmental toxin into our air or water or medicines or food,” Kennedy claimed in April, later adding “autism destroys families.”

The reliability of these supposed studies and apparent data collecting effort are still a big question mark.

RFK Jr. has, of course, long pushed the conspiracy theory that there’s a link between autism and vaccines.

— Emine Yücel

The Moment has Arrived

For months, TPM has been banging on about Russ Vought’s various gimmicks to not spend funding Congress has appropriated — impoundment, essentially, in violation of the Nixon era Impoundment Control Act, and, at a deeper level, the Constitution, which as any middle school civics student could tell you, gives to the legislature the “power of the purse.”

This has taken various forms: DOGE making its haphazard “cuts,” other elements of the administration scaling back and terminating programs, grant funding that is cancelled or simply never shows up. Up until this point, the issue came most pointedly to a head in July, when Republicans in Congress, at the White House’s urging, voted on a “rescissions” bill. That legislation legitimized DOGE’s sweeping cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting funding, which had received bipartisan support, using a mechanism that only required 50 votes and, thus, could be executed solely by Republicans, who complained about the impropriety of what they were doing the whole time they were doing it. 

Now, things have escalated further. Late Thursday, news emerged that Vought had done what he had long threatened: sent Congress a “pocket rescission.” Using this supposed loophole, with a name evoking the “pocket veto,” the administration claims that if it submits a rescission request to Congress close to the end of the fiscal year, it is approved, regardless of what Congress does. This is widely understood to be illegal, but so were many other ways in which the administration chose to spend funds. The difference with pocket rescissions is that they are so patently absurd, they have inspired bipartisan pushback, prompted Democrats to predict a shutdown, and, most importantly for the long term, highlighted the fight over federal funding in a way that will likely force the Supreme Court to weigh in on one of the administration’s most outlandish and constitutionally challenged theories.

All this stuff is admittedly quite weedsy. But while it doesn’t have the same fiery confrontations as Trump’s purging of the federal workforce, and doesn’t come with the chilling visuals of armed soldiers in American streets, it remains important, contested ground as his power grab advances. How this shakes out will determine if Congress remains a coequal branch of government, or one subservient to the executive. 

— John Light

Trump’s Problematic BLS Pick Has Ties to Stephen Moore

It turns out Trump’s wildly unpopular pick to head the Bureau of Labor Statistics will face a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee after all. 

E.J. Antoni will be the first BLS pick to have a committee hearing since Trump’s last pick, former BLS Commissioner William Beach, in 2017. The nomination of Antoni, a conservative, Heritage Foundation economist who helped author Project 2025, drew ire from progressive and conservative economists for his lack of experience and general beliefs about economics. While his own views are troubling — he’s proposed halting the monthly jobs report and replacing it all together with quarterly data — Antoni’s confirmation hearing might be obscured by some of the other nominees set to  appear with him during the hearing. That includes two NLRB nominees and a MAHA Surgeon General pick who has publicly declared “RFK is doing God’s work.”

And if you’re wondering how a person who just got their doctorate five years ago even came to be considered for the top statistician position in the land, a Washington Post deep dive published Friday uncovered that Antoni’s cousin, a right-wing podcast host, introduced him to longtime Trump adviser Stephen Moore. Moore lobbied for Antoni to get the job.

— Layla A. Jones