President Trump's audacious plan to convert Alcatraz back to a maximum-security prison could come with a hefty price tag: $2 billion, administration sources tell Axios' Marc Caputo.

• Why it matters: Trump is so intent on building a new prison on Alcatraz Island that administration officials have figured preliminary estimates of the costs and made repeated site visits, the sources say.

The latest: Attorney General Pam Bondi and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum toured the island yesterday.

• Bondi's department oversees the Bureau of Prisons, which would run the facility. Burgum's agency owns the land and manages the site — which has been a tourist attraction since 1973 — through the National Park Service.

🔎 Zoom in: Two administration officials say Trump hasn't made a final decision on what he wants to do with the island, and it's unclear what the precise costs would be. As described to Axios, there are three general options on the table:

1. A "supermax" prison complex that would cost more than $2 billion. It would require razing all of the island's decrepit structures and building from scratch.
2. A scaled-back prison that would cost $1 billion and not occupy the entire island.
3. Putting the project out to bid for private prison contractors to build and operate. This option is the least likely of the three, the sources said.

"We're still in the early stages," an administration official said. "We need a lot more study, a lot more specificity, before the president decides. But $2 billion might just be too much money for him."

• Another reason the most-expensive option might not be the choice: It would take too long to build, and Trump wants to do as much as possible while he's in office.

📉 The big picture: The U.S. prison population — already one of the world's largest relative to the population — has been declining for years and is projected to decrease even more.

• Trump's interest in Alcatraz is motivated more by symbolism than necessity, according to those who know his thinking. Alcatraz, featured in many movies, has a space in the cultural consciousness as a tough place, and the president likes that.

Immigration enforcement is one of the few clear growth opportunities for the incarceration-industrial complex.

• Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill" increased funding for immigration enforcement and could be a source of funding for a new Alcatraz if Trump moves forward with the idea.

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President Trump said last night on Truth Social that he has directed Attorney General Pam Bondi to release all relevant grand jury testimony in Jeffrey Epstein's case, subject to court approval.

• Why it matters: The Epstein fallout has been snowballing for nearly two weeks, with the MAGA base pushing the president to take further action after the administration said a review found no evidence that the convicted sex offender kept a "client list" or was murdered.

⏱️ Bondi responded on X two minutes later that she's "ready to move the court tomorrow to unseal the grand jury transcripts."

In another Truth Social post last night, Trump said he plans to sue The Wall Street Journal, parent company News Corp. and Rupert Murdoch over a front-page story published last evening, Axios' Rebecca Falconer writes.

• The article described a happy-birthday letter bearing Trump's name that the Journal says was given to Jeffrey Epstein.

The letter, which the WSJ reports that it reviewed, was in a leather-bound album that Ghislaine Maxwell put together in 2003 for Epstein's birthday, according to the story. The letter bearing Trump's name allegedly features a "bawdy" drawing of a naked woman.

• In an interview with the Journal on Tuesday, Trump denied writing the letter or drawing the picture: "This is not me. This is a fake thing. It's a fake Wall Street Journal story. ... I don't draw pictures of women ... It's not my language. It's not my words."

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt tweeted: "The WSJ refused to show us the letter and conceded they don't even have it in their possession when we asked them to verify the alleged document."

• Top MAGA influencers, even ones critical of Trump's handling of the Epstein matter, bashed the Journal story. Charlie Kirk posted: "This is not how Trump talks at all. I don't believe it."

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California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently shook up his communications team — and now the outspoken Democrat is turning many of Donald Trump's brash political tactics against the president himself.

• Newsom and his team have used online trolling, meme wars, mocking TikTok videos, insults such as "cuck," and even a lawsuit against a media company — in this case, one accusing Fox News of misleading reporting — to create an edgy resistance, Axios' Alex Thompson writes.

🗳️ Why it matters: In the lead-up to a potential 2028 presidential campaign, Newsom is essentially acknowledging that many of Trump's tactics are effective. He's betting they can help Democrats reach more voters in the attention economy.

• Newsom remains coy about a White House run, but he's increasingly acting and sounding like a candidate.
• He's also sat for lengthy podcast interviews with conservative figures, and last week made a trip to the early primary state of South Carolina.

📱 In the aftermath of Trump's attacks on Newsom's handling of the fires in Los Angeles this year, the governor retooled his rapid-response operation in ways that resemble that of Trump.

• In response to Trump dodging questions this week about releasing more information about Jeffrey Epstein, Newsom's team posted a TikTok that included an old photo of Trump and Epstein with Nickelback's "Photograph" playing.
• Newsom aides also have taken to posting various "Star Wars" and "Simpsons" memes to mock Trump.

By the numbers: As Democrats wrestle with low poll numbers, Newsom's approach has earned millions of new social-media followers.

• On TikTok he now has 1.8 million followers, up from just over 500,000 in March, according to the Internet Archive.

👀 Between the lines: Newsom also has been trying to shed what his team feels is the unfair caricature of a San Francisco liberal.

• Newsom launched his own podcast this year and has had calm interviews with prominent conservatives such as Charlie Kirk, Steve Bannon and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

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Bridgeport, Conn., Boston, and San Diego have the most gyms per 100,000 residents among big U.S. metro areas, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick writes from government data.

• Why it matters: Gyms offer city dwellers a way to get and stay healthy, and can serve as excellent "third places" — a spot to hang out and connect outside home or work.

🏙️ By the numbers: The Bridgeport metro's got 27.5 gyms for every 100,000 residents, Boston has 20.6 and San Diego has 20.4.

• San Juan (4.3), Lakeland, Fla. (6.2), and McAllen, Texas (6.6), have the fewest gyms for every 100,000 people.

What's next: The latest high-end gyms are setting themselves up as both a place to pump iron and take work meetings — though hopefully not at the same time.

• Other popular gym chains, like Planet Fitness and Crunch Fitness, are swapping out cardio equipment to make room for more weights — reflecting our "increasingly muscle-obsessed population," as Bloomberg put it.

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Meta hired two top AI researchers from Apple for its Superintelligence Lab, soon after hiring their boss, Bloomberg's Apple expert, Mark Gurman, reports with Kurt Wagner (gift link).

• There's a war for the best AI talent in Silicon Valley — and Meta is on a tear, splashing out nine-figure packages to compete with rivals like OpenAI and Google.

💼 Zoom in: "Mark Lee has started at Meta after leaving Apple in recent days, while Tom Gunter will begin work in the near future," Bloomberg reports:

• They both "worked closely with Ruoming Pang, the chief of Apple's large language models team who Meta poached earlier this month."
• "To secure Pang, Meta offered a multiyear compensation package worth well over $200 million."

A few minutes after midnight, the House voted to approve President Trump's requested clawback of $9 billion in federal funding for PBS, NPR and foreign aid programs, Axios' Kate Santaliz and Kathleen Hunter report.

• Why it matters: Democrats worry this victory — which codifies DOGE cuts — will embolden the White House to ask Congress to approve even larger rescission packages in the future, potentially undermining bipartisan deals to avoid a government shutdown.

🏛️ The measure passed 216-213, with only Republican support, ahead of tonight's deadline.

• GOP Reps. Mike Turner (Ohio) and Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.) voted with Democrats against the bill.

Read on ... What's in the bill.

If you're in D.C., it's not just in your head: This summer's been the muggiest one in 60 years, Capital Weather Gang notes.

• Go deeper: Summer evenings are getting warmer nationwide.

The next season of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert" will be its last. It'll be off the air in May 2026, Axios' Sareen Habeshian writes.

• Viewership and ad revenue for late-night television are rapidly declining, threatening the 70-year-old genre.

The sunsetting of the 32-year-old late-night show that comedian Stephen Colbert has hosted for a decade was "purely a financial decision" made "against a challenging backdrop in late night," CBS said.

🎥 At the show's taping last night, Colbert said he found out about the program's cancellation just the day before.

• When the audience booed, he said: "Yeah, I share your feelings."

Colbert said 200 people work on the show.

• Watch Colbert's announcement.

Go deeper: Late-night shows under pressure in hyper-partisan streaming era.