>> from the world of politics to the world of business, this is balance of power. live from washington, d.c. joe: as we make a run for the border on the festa show in politics, welcome to the friday edition of balance of power on bloomberg tv and radio. standing by for a critical interview on bloomberg today that gets to one of the most important issues that will

decide this presidential campaign in november. kailey: the issue of the border. this is something the department of homeland security has been grappling with under this administration most notably, the secretary ella hundred mayorkas who is about to sit down with david rubenstein on bloomberg television and radio. he is the host of peer-to-peer conversations. they're going to peer conversations. they're going to be speaking at the economic club and this is a matter of weeks after the effort to impeach secretary mayorkas died in the senate after the house voted to impeach him over what they see as him not adequately doing his job even if he is just enforcing the policies of this administration. joe: he has had quite a year to be impeached by the house on the same day he was testifying to the benefit of joe biden in trying to sell the new budget plan that had just recently delivered. it is remarkable once the articles went to the senate, that was the end of that story. you have a cabinet.

not only made history but is stashed with enormous list of trying to solve the problem of the border and the president prepared to take executive act is -- exec of action kailey: the question is are we going to see more decisive, more sweeping action at his -- as he knows this is an issue dogging him as he campaigns for reelection. we want to go to our political panel. we await this interview with the homeland security secretary. we already have seen some small moves from the biden administration on the border but now that we are 100 days out from the bipartisan deal he negotiated with members of the senate which died quickly after the deal was made, does he need to be doing more? jeanne: i think he does and i applaud the president, i applaud chuck schumer for moving forward. the reality is congress should have passed that agreement. it was by all accounts the toughest order security deal we

have seen in 100 years. the fact it was thrown out for political reasons because they did not want president biden to get a bill passed on immigration this year is just a shame. so the president not being able to rely on congress has to go it alone and chuck schumer has to move forward. i would also say president biden politically needs to juxtapose his plan on the border with his opponents because donald trump's plans as it pertains to the border which are becoming very clear at this point are going to be something we should be talking about as they seek to deport millions of people seeking asylum in the united states. joe: we are going to hear conversation about more than just immigration policy and order security. this is an issue that hits close to home for you. something i know when it comes to comprehensive immigration reform. hugh came closer than just about anyone in your work with john mccain.

we saw george w. bush make efforts that always brought this right up to the line but never became law. together we witness what we are talking about here. this copperheads have deal on immigration that was struck in the senate. what are you going to be looking for in alejandra mayorkas to get a sense for where this debate is heading in the year ahead? rick: he has plenty of ammunition to try to galvanize support around another shot at the measure. i have seen today reports chuck schumer is looking to take the bill back up and take a another -- take another vote in the senate. i would love to see the president as part of this border week that seems to be brewing make a statement that the first thing he will do if reelected is to reinsert this order security provision into congress. get them to pass it and sign it

into law. make it a top priority. he has not embraced the border debate and this would be a great week to see him march out there and make a statement like that. someone is to explain to him his administration is going to be graded on the future and not just the past. kailey: we have seen joe biden meet recently, take a trip to the border. he did so on the same day donald trump about a few hundred miles apart from each other in texas. does he need to go there again? how frequently should he be at the sight of the issue in this campaign cycle when he is spending a lot of time in swing states? jeanne: i keep hearing from people at the border. it is not that they need politicians down there to get cameras down there and stand there and show that they are somehow addressing the problem. what the president needs to do is if he cannot get congress to act and we know that is not

going to happen this year, he needs to do what he can do legally, constitutionally but do it unilaterally. he needs to assure the american people that security is his number one focus as is a humanitarian comprehensive immigration policy in the united states. i'm in new york city. look so many cities across the country we have had an influx of immigrants who have come up and they are making a real challenge for these cities as they are -- as it pertains to education, health care, housing or the economic impact of that is real. those are things he needs to do. i applaud those who say let's let immigrants and asylum-seekers work in this country. we have jobs. let's let them fill those. there is a lot the president can do. i'm fine if he goes to the border but i don't think we need any more photo ops as much as we need action by congress in

particular but barring that, the president should joe: -- the president. joe: we thank you to help us set the baseline for this important conversation we are about to bring you. this is happening at the economic club in washington, d.c. as we mentioned, our colleague david rubenstein, carlyle group cofounder, host of peer to down with alejandro mayorkas as you can see right now on bloomberg television. let's watch and listen. sec. mayorkas: the jewel thief i am, i just stole a few for our from the law firm to join us and he would be a senior counselor on matters of technology. david: let me talk about the elephant in the room because you were the second secretary in the history of our country to be impeached. what was it like living through that impeachment process and is it finally over now? sec. mayorkas: to the best of my

knowledge, it is over. [laughter] quite frankly, i have said publicly a number of times that i did not allow it to distract me. that was actually sincere. i focused intensely on my work throughout. on -- in a week where it was an issue of greater prominence in the life of the department. i might have spent 20 minutes on it. i focused on my work. it had its impact on loved ones. david: it is behind us now. as will rogers once said in paraphrasing him, the country is never safe as long as the house is in session so you never know. [laughter] it may never come back, right? sec. mayorkas: one would hope not. david: talk about the border. it appears are a lot of people coming over the border. this is one of the subjects people wanted to -- some people wanted to impeach you over.

is it that we are getting more people coming over the border illegally or is it just the appearance of that? sec. mayorkas: the number of encounters at the southern border is very high. but it is very important number one to contextualize it and to explain it. from a context perspective, the world is seeing the greatest level of displacement since at least world war ii. the recent report was there are 73 million displaced people in the united states and so the challenge of migration is not exclusive to the southern border or to the western hemisphere. it is global. as i speak to partners across the atlantic, it is the first issue they raise, the first challenge they discuss. david: what is the reason for that? sec. mayorkas: one has the customary reasons of displacement. violence. insecurity. poverty.

corruption. authoritarian regimes. increasingly, extreme weather events that propel people to leave. why are we experiencing what we are? it is for those reasons why people leave their countries of origin. we also remember in our hemisphere we overcame covid more rapidly than any other country. we had in post-covid world 11 million jobs to fill. we are a country of choice as a destination. one takes those two forces and then one considers the fact we have an immigration system that is broken fundamentally and we have a level of encounter. when we speak of a broken system, let me just capture that

as the sickly as i can. the at -- as succinctly as i can to the average time between encounter and final adjudication of an asylum claim is seven plus years. approximately 70% of the people who meet an initial threshold for asylum, the credible fear standard, about 70% qualify and so they stay for seven plus years. the ultimate adjudication, about 20% qualify. that is quite a disparity but people in the meantime leave. able to stay. sometimes have children. u.s. citizen children. attend our schools. attend our places of worship. david: why wouldn't somebody coming in illegally always say they are seeking political asylum because based on what you said, they are likely to be here for seven years -- why not say i'm not smuggling drugs, i'm a political asylum seeker?

sec. mayorkas: let separate drug smuggling from migration. the fact of the matter is we have an extraordinary number of people claiming asylum and a greatly reduced number of people qualifying for it. the reality of it is people do claim asylum when they are fleeing poverty. generalized violence. that does not an asylum case make what the initial threshold for an asylum case is low and purposefully low. one of the things the bipartisan legislation would have done is raised -- david: in our country if someone speak -- someone seek split close asylum and they need political asylum, is it our law they automatically get it if they have widget amid needs? there are no quotas or anything on how many people we can accept? sec. mayorkas:sec. mayorkas: there is no quota on the asylum

population. one just has to persuade a judge. david: you have been homeland security secretary under president from the beginning. -- under president biden from the beginning. , the people would you say have come over the southern border illegally seeking asylum? they are bringing drugs, whatever they are doing. sec. mayorkas:sec. mayorkas: i do want to differentiate because we are in a political environment that demonizes individuals the border -- encountered at the border. there is a vulnerability to painting with the broadbrush people who are coming to the united states. i will be incessant in this. separate drug smugglers from individuals seeking asylum or even if they do not have a basis to remain in the united states, seeking a better life. and so the number of encounters

have been very well published this past month. we had about 134,000 encounters. david: let's say since the getting of the administration, is it millions of people? sec. mayorkas: is it -- it is several young people. david: the perception by some republicans on the house side is that more people have been coming in under president biden then president trump. is that true or not? sec. mayorkas: that is true. in 2019, there was almost a 100% increase in the number of encounters at the southern border over 2018. the situation in the hemisphere was propelling people to leave their country. 2020 was a period of terminus lisa pressed migration throughout the hemisphere and around the world because of the covid-pandemic. . david: what percentage of them

are drug smugglers? sec. mayorkas: the majority of fentanyl, over 90% of the fentanyl smuggled into this country is smuggled in passenger vehicles and commercial trucks traveling through our ports of entry. david: it is not people carrying it on their body? sec. mayorkas: it is not people carrying it on their body. david: what about people who want to get a better life, they hire people for money to get them across the border. is that a big problem as well? sec. mayorkas: let me go back and make one other point about the ports of entry. the majority of people arrested seeking to smuggle fentanyl through the country through trucks and vehicles are citizens. david:david: what do you do with them? sec. mayorkas: they are arrested for drug smuggling another 20 -- and under title 21 of the united states code, they are prosecuted. with respect to your question

about people coming across the border, what we need fundamentally is a reformed system. a legislatively reformed system should -- reform system. we are in 2024. the world has changed. our immigration system was last changed in 1996. we are in different world now. david: there was legislation that was developed in the senate and it got stalled let's say in the house. with the have solved our problem? sec. mayorkas: it would have been a transformative change in managing the number of people we encounter. david: what was the main thing that would have been in that law we don't have now that you would have liked to have? sec. mayorkas: we would have taken a seven plus year time period between the time of encounter and final adjudication

and reduced it to as little as 90 days. that changes and intending migrants risk calculus. if they know they can stay for multiple years and work and make more money than they can and safely so than in their country of origin, they will decide to make that journey. if they understand that they have to pay their life savings to a smuggling organization only to stay for a matter of weeks, that is a different risk calculus. in of your prior questions wasn't do they pay people to assist them. the road of migration has changed dramatically over the last 15 years. we are not dealing with the coyotes that i dealt with as a federal prosecutor where they smuggled two or three people at a time. we are dealing with extraordinarily sophisticated smuggling organizations in multibillion dollar industry that is also international. david: that industry is one that

is designed to bring drugs into the night states or get people to come to edit states for which they get a fee? sec. mayorkas:sec. mayorkas: it is the latter and it should be unsurprising to everyone we are seeing not quite a merger -- i would say a synthesis of transnational criminal organizations and the smuggling organizations. there is so much money to be made. david: fentanyl is coming from china, is that true? sec. mayorkas: china is a primary source of precursor chemicals and the equipment used to manufacture fentanyl. david:david: how does he get from china to let's say mexico? sec. mayorkas: it is shipped to mexico. it also comes domestically to the united states and follows various transit routes which is why i engaged with my counterpart from the people's republic of china to address this fact.

david: the people who are coming over, are we separating families -- under the trumpet administration, there was a lot of controversy children were being separated from parents. sec. mayorkas: that was a deliberate practice to deter families from reaching the southern border was the separation of them. that was a condemned -- that was condemned across the board. cruelty is not something that is an instrument of a value-based country. and we eliminated that practice. it was eliminated in all fairness towards the end of the trump administration. we issued a policy preventing it and we actually -- the president created a family reunification task force that i chair that is reuniting separated families. david: president trump campaigned when he first campaign for president on creating a wall and some part of

the wall was built. would not they will have helped somewhat if we had a big wall? with that knob block people from coming even though people like to make fun of the wall and it is expensive, would not have some impact in reducing illegal immigration? sec. mayorkas: in the 21st century, i would not necessarily propose cementing bollards on the ground and constructing an immovable wall given the dynamism and the rapid change in migratory patterns. i just have to quote secretary napolitano. you build a 20 foot wall, they will build a 21 foot ladder. we see breaches of the wall all the time. we are seeing the corrosion and collapse of the wall in other places. people breach physical barriers. it requires a much more comprehensive approach. david: why wouldn't people come

over the northern border? nobody seems to be monitoring the canadian border that much i guess. isn't it easier to come in the country illegally through canada? sec. mayorkas: we monitor the northern border of the united states. [laughter] u.s. customs and border protection. some of the terrain is very difficult to traverse. we have a different legal structure with canada. we have a safe third country agreement with canada and the reality -- canada also has different approaches to migration into their country then do some of the countries in latin america. david: if you want to come in to this country illegally, let's suppose you want -- sec. mayorkas: let's say if one wanted to come. david: what would you recommend to that one person about the best way to get into the country illegally? sec. mayorkas: i would caution them and encourage them to apply

for a visa. and if in fact they seek humanitarian relief, to actually avail themselves of the lawful pathways that we have established so that they don't risk their lives in the hands of smugglers. [applause] david: what percentage of people die trying to get into this country? they are shot by somebody or -- sec. mayorkas: i don't know, david, a percentage i will share with you having spoken to families who across the area between columbia and panama, the suffering and the trauma is extraordinary. david: what is the country that ascending the most people illegally over the southern border? is in mexico, colombia, venezuela? where are they mostly coming from? sec. mayorkas: it varies from time to time.

i would say the population right now demographically, the population of individuals who you're encountering at the southern border in between the ports of entry, predominantly mexico. david: let's suppose the legislation that did not pass maybe eventually it will pass but until then, can you not administratively do the things in the legislation or you're already doing those things? sec. mayorkas: the legislation did a number of things. the two pillars were it gave us the legal tools, statutory tools to vastly accelerate the adjudication of claims for humanitarian relief. that means we can remove people more quickly who do not qualify. we can give protection with finality to people who do much more rapidly and it resourced us

to resourced us -- more immigration judges. in a way we now do not have. david: let me ask you a few other questions related to this. right now, the department of homeland security was created after 9/11. do you feel we are much safer today than we were before 9/11 because of the department? sec. mayorkas: i do, much more. it is our job and not just the department of homeland security but the federal government in partnership with state and local tribal and territorial law enforcement and the american citizenry to be vigilant because the threat landscape has -- as

director ray has communicated, we are in a heightened threat environment. david: and number of people from home and security and or the cia and nsa have gone to capitol hill and said tiktok is a danger to our national security but the public has not been given that much detailed information about what the threat is. how much of a threat to our national security is tiktok? sec. mayorkas: the people's republic of china ask adversely -- acts adversely to the people of the united states in different ways. one of those ways is through the dissemination of disinformation. intentional communication of false statements. tiktok is an extraordinary avenue through which to disseminate this information -- disseminate disinformation to minds of people.

david: newspapers can disseminate misinformation. why is it if it is over social media has to be banned. if a newspaper says the same thing, it would not be banned because of the first amendment. was the first amendment not protecting the tiktok social media devices? sec. mayorkas: it is not to me an issue of the first amendment. it is an issue of security. we are talking about a company and an algorithm that is controlled by a foreign state that acts adversely to the interest of the united states and we have an obligation to protect americans. david: the presumption is people are not smart enough to know it is disinformation and they cannot make the decision for themselves. is that right? sec. mayorkas: we are talking about many young people that access tiktok. i would posit in this country we don't have the level of digital literacy that we would all want.

we are all vulnerable to disinformation. and the reality is we have an obligation to safeguard against it. we are talking about the intentional dissemination of false information. david: i should disclose my firm is an investor in bytedance so i am not personally an investor but my firm did invest in it. let me go on to another subject. sec. mayorkas: you know my answers would have stayed the same had i known that at the outset. david: i didn't think you were going to change. you have children who ever watch tiktok or you tell them not to do that? sec. mayorkas: the one maxim from law school that i remember very clearly, i don't think our older daughter looks at tiktok. our younger daughter does. the law abhors a useless act. that is a maxim i remember.

if i admonished her 19-year-old daughter to not access tiktok, i'm not sure i would succeed. [laughter] sec. mayorkas:sec. mayorkas: do you ever watch -- david: do you ever watch tiktok yourself? sec. mayorkas: i do not. she is a digitally literate consumer of information. david: what is the biggest security threat to the united states in your view? sec. mayorkas: in the terrorism context, i would say the threat of foreign terrorism has reemerged with a greater level of significance. the threat of domestic violence extremists, individuals or loose affiliations of individuals who are radicalized to violence because of ideologies of hate which are only increasing especially after the october 7 terrorist attacks against israel. antigovernment sentiments, false narratives, other narratives propagated.

david: you feel better about her homeland security today than you did 10 years ago or 20 years ago? sec. mayorkas: i do. i think the department and the homeland security enterprise writ large has matured and advanced tremendously. david: today, who are the best at cyber terrorism? is it china, north korea? who do you think has the greatest capabilities of doing damage to our country in terms of foreign countries through cyber? sec. mayorkas: i would say there are four. china, russia, iran and north korea. david: in our country, you can go if you are really good at cyber, you can work for a intrafirm, make lots of money and so forth. if you work in the u.s. government, you are not going to get paid as much. is the u.s. government able to get top-flight cyber people who can compete with the people from overseas or do we not have the best people in our government

working on these problems because we cannot pay them enough? sec. mayorkas: we have the best people in the government. they are the best -- there are the best people in the private sector as well. you raise an issue where we had a debate internally. to attract the best cyber talent, should we increase the salaries of those individuals to be able to better compete? we of course cannot close the divide but we can shrink it. david: how did that come out? sec. mayorkas: i lost this debate because we did increase the salaries. my position is very difficult for me to stand in front of a group of border patrol agents that risk their lives every day, and say i have got to pace cyber talent, i have to kick up their salary to come to work for the