Trump Name-Drops Nic Cage Movie To Defend Handcuffing Illegals During Deportation Flights

President Donald Trump name-dropped a movie featuring Oscar-winning actor Nicolas Cage while defending the use of handcuffs to restrain illegal aliens aboard deportation flights out of the United States.

Trump referenced Cage’s 1997 action-movie “Con-Air” — in which a handful of convicts take over control of a plane that was supposed to be used to transport them to a new facility — and then argued that by keeping detainees handcuffed, federal immigration authorities were essentially attempting to prevent a similar scenario from playing out on their watch.

Responding to complaints from Brazilian officials about the fact that detainees had been handcuffed for their deportation flights — a practice that was also standard during former President Joe Biden’s administration — Trump made it clear that he was not planning to make any changes.

“We were being scolded because we had them in shackles in an airplane,” Trump said of the Brazilian official. “And he said, ‘This is no way to treat people.’ Now, you gotta understand these are murderers, drug lords, gang members, just the toughest people you’ve ever met or seen.”

WATCH:

???? WATCH: @POTUS just compared to the Mass Deportation flights to Con Air ???? pic.twitter.com/MYyZrrCZAl

— Steak for Breakfast (@SteakforPodcast) January 27, 2025

“How would you like to be the pilot of a plane? You got two pilots up there and you got 300 people sitting in a plane — every one of them either a murderer, a drug lord, a kingpin of some kind, the head of the mob, or a gang member — and you’re flying that plane,” Trump continued, predicting, “It’s not gonna end well.”

“You ever see the movie ‘Con-Air’? That’s what — yeah … Except here’s the difference: the people in ‘Con-Air’ were actors. They weren’t nearly as tough as these guys,” the president said. “I would say that that plane would be gone before it ever left. Those pilots would be gone before it ever left. So, they don’t want us to shackle them. I don’t want to be in that plane.”