My memory take a look at what ive done since becoming president. Ill talk to bidens campaign cochair, mitch landrieu. Plus, the art of no deal. Democracy is messy. We crushed crooked joe bidens disastrous open borders bill. Republicans reject a bipartisan deal they demanded and then failed to impeach bidens Homeland Security secretary. The resolution is not adopted. The people at home sent me here to get stuff done and to solve problems. What is the point of being a senator if you have donald trump make all of the decisions for you . If Congress Wont fix the border, who will solve the problem . Ill talk exclusively to Homeland Security secretary alejandro mayorkas. And encouraging putin. Donald trump says he would tell russia to attack nato allies who dont pay their bills. No, i would not protect you. In fact, i would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. Would the Nato Alliance be in danger in a second trump term . Ill speak to former republican governor Chris Christie of new jersey. Joining me for insight and analysis are nbc news chief White House CorrespondentPeter Alexander. Amna nawaz, coanchor of pbs newshour. Former house secretary jen psaki and brendan buck. Welcome to sunday. Its Meet The Press. Announcer from nbc news in washington, the longestrunning show in television history, this is Meet The Press with kristen welker. Good sunday morning. On a week in which republicans suffered embarrassing defeats on capitol hill, it was President Biden who wound up dealing with perhaps the biggest crisis. Democrats are reeling, using words like nightmare and beyond devastating to describe Special Counsel robert hurs handling of classified documents. The Special Counsel found no criminal charges against President Biden are warranted, but the president , quote, willfully retained classified materials after his Vice Presidency when he was a private citizen, including marked classified documents about afghanistan and notebooks containing sensitive intelligence sources and methods, which he shared with a ghostwriter, an allegation biden described, and it was found near a collapsed dog crate in bidens delaware garage. The report puts what it calls bidens diminished faculties and advanced age front and center. President biden fired back thursday. Something the Special Counsel said in his report is that one of the reasons you were not charged is because, in his description, you are a wellmeaning elderly man with a poor memory. Im wellmeaning, im an elderly man, and i know what the hell im doing. Do you take responsibility for being careless with classified material . I take responsibility for not having seen exactly what my staff was doing. Now, according to the report, the president did not remember key dates about his term as Vice President , and the report claims he did not remember even within several years of when his son beau died. How the hell dare he raise that. Frankly, when i was asked the question, i thought it wasnt any of their damn business. I dont need anyone to remind me of when he passed away. And in a rare pushback from jill biden calling the report including the comments about beau inaccurate and personal, political attacks about joe, but democrats worry about the age issue already looming over President Bidens reelection bid. 76 of voters have major or moderate concerns about biden not having the mental or physical health for a second term. That includes more than half of democrats. Its an issue President Biden has had to address for years. If i were to run they would judge me on my vitality. Can i still run up the stairs of air force 2 . Do i have my faculties and i think its totally legitimate to ask the questions. This is for the voters to decide. Look at me, see if i know what im talking about and make the judgment. The only thing i can say to the American People, its a legitimate question to ask anybody. Watch me. This past week, President Biden confused the names and countries of three World Leaders in separate events. Former President Donald Trump who is 77 has had his own flub saying nikki haley was in charge of the Capitol On January 6th instead of nancy pelosi. Hoe he has pleaded not guilty to 40 counts of his mishandseling of documents and the two cases are different. While President Biden alerted authorities and cooperated, former President Trump, quote, did the opposite alleging ordering others to destroy documents. They ended up with the now famous raid on maralago. Were having a talk and they raided my house. If hes not going to be charged, thats up to them, but then i should not be charged. And joining me now is Homeland Security secretary alejandro mayorkas. Secretary mayorkas, welcome back to Meet The Press. Thank you for being here. Thank you for having me, kristen. We are going to talk about whats happening on capitol hill, but first i do want to talk about that Special Counsel report that we just discussed. Ow obviously work very closely with President Biden as a member of his cabinet, and i wonder, have you ever seen anything that makes you question or concerned about his mental faculties . No, and let me take a step back because i served as a federal prosecutor for 12 years, kristen. The responsibility of the federal prosecutor is to investigate and learn the facts and apply the law to those facts. The prosecutor did this, the Special Counsel did this in the case, made a conclusion that there is no case, case closed, and then made gratuitous unnecessary and inaccurate personal remarks, and those are improper. The most difficult part about a meeting with President Biden is preparing for it because he is sharp, intensely probing, detailoriented, and focused. You are saying some of the details are gratuitous. The Vice President called what was in the report politically motivated, and this was a Special Counsel that was appointed by the biden administration. I wonder how you can ask people to have faith in the Justice Department investigating donald trump and not investigating biden . The Justice Department acts with unflinching integrity, and the Attorney General of the United States personifies that every single day as do the Career Prosecutors and everyone in the Department Of Justice. This Special Counsel report is an unfortunate deviation from the norms that guide the Department Of Justice throughout its history. Do you think that the president compromised National Security in his handling of classified documents . This report says that he stored some of the nations most sensitive secrets in his garage. Is that responsible . It is my understanding that National Security was not in any compromised by the retention of documents. The president , according to the report, cooperated fully with the Special Counsels investigation. Let me ask you about what we are hearing from some ome call the 25 republicans. More than a dozen republican lawmakers are now calling for the 25th Amendment to be invoked, just to give our viewers a sense of what that means it basically means the cabinet would have the authority to start the process of trying to remove the president if he or she is deemed incapable of serving. What is the reaction to those calls . Has that ever been discussed . Kristen, i dont engage in governing, and i follow the president s agenda, which i skrup usually do. I have to tell you, i have met with the president many, many times over the course of the past three years. I prepare intensely from those meetings and i follow up with those meeting to get the answers to the questions he has posed and he is probing and focused on the mission. As far as you know, the 25th Amendment has not been discussed . Not at all. Lets talk about whats happening on capitol hill. House republicans are plan for a second time to impeach you. They accuse you of willfully not following the laws and therefore not securing the border and lying about having control of it. Mr. Secretary, these are serious allegations. How do you respond . Theyre baseless allegations, kristen, and thats why i am not distracted by them and focused on the work of the department of Homeland Security. Im inspired every single day by the remarkable work that 260,000 Men And Women In Our Department Perform On Behalf Of The American public. Ive got a busy day today after the show, a busy day of work. Ive got a busy day monday, tuesday, wednesday, and so on. Let me just ask you, though, big picture. You have now been in your position for three years, and lets talk about whats happened during those three years. More migrants have crossed the border illegally last year than ever before. The asylum cases backlog has more than tripled since 2019. You yourself have said that more than 85 of migrants crossing the border illegally are being released into the u. S. As they await their court dates. Lets just put impeachment aside for a minute. Why do you deserve to keep your job, mr. Secretary . Kristen, the data that you cite is a powerful example of why we need legislation to fix what everyone agrees is a broken immigration system, and you take a snapshot of the data over the past three years. Lets take a look at the last three years. That case backlog, which is about 3 million cases, has been growing year over year over year. The time between when we encounter an individual at the border and the time of the final adjudication of an asylum case has been years. Five to seven years for years and years. I remember when i entered the department of Homeland Security in 2009, we were wrestling with these very same issues. The system has not been fixed for 30 years. A Bipartisan Group of senators have now presented us with the tools and resources we need, the Bipartisan Group, and yet Congress Killed it before even reading it. No doubt there is gridlock on congress, but do you bear responsibility for whats happening with the border as the president himself has called a cry says . It certainly is a crisis, and while we dont bear responsibility for a broken system, were doing a tremendous amount within that broken system, but fundamentally, fundamentally, congress is the only one who can fix it. You testified for years, really, that the border is secure and now in recent comments President Biden says its not secure. Do you now agree with President Bidens assessment that its not secure . Kristen, the challenges of the border have been longstanding. The president correctly noted that those challenges have existed for ten years. So you agree with him . In fact, even longer. There is no question that we have a broken system. There is no question that we have a challenge, a crisis at the border and there is no question that Congress Needs to fix it, and were doing everything we can within that broken system short of legislation to address what is not just a challenge for the United States, but one throughout our region. Nbc news is reporting that President Biden is right now considering taking some executive actions to deal with the border. As you know, republicans are calling for him to shut down the border right now, something that undoubtedly would face legal challenges, but, mr. Secretary, why doesnt the president just shut down the border and let the courts just try to stop him . Well, the fact of the matter, kristen, is that we have taken executive actions already. We continuously review what options are available to us, but those are always challenged in the courts, and whether or not they see the light of day and actually are able to be operationalized is an open question. That is why that is why the Bipartisan Group of senators actually prepared and presented a piece of legislation that would, you know, basic in state auto, the ability to close the border for a limited period of time, an extreme measure, and it would be immune from Court Challenge because it is statutorily based. If it were done legislatively, no doubt you would have the legal challenges, but isnt trying to do Something Better than doing nothing at all . Why doesnt President Biden try to shut down the border . Are you encouraging him to do that in . Well, we have already taken important steps. We certainly havent done nothing. I will tell you, we issued a regulation, the circumvention of Lawful Pathways, that increased a Rebuttable Presumption of ineligibility for Asylum Seekers if they did not avail themselves of the Lawful Pathways that we built, and so weve done a tremendous amount. Its very important to remember we have removed, returned, or expelled more individuals in the past three years than the Prior Administration did in all four. Let me ask you because i just heard you say that you are reviewing what is available to you, which suggests that you may be considering taking new executive actions. Would that include potentially detaining families . Kristen, let me be clear about what i said. We always explore what option are available to us that are permissible under the law, and if we think they are advantageous in achieving our mission, we institute them. We have made a decision that we will not detain families. So thats off the table. Detaining families. Youve rejected in the past and you still reject it. Its absolutely off the table. That has not come back up. We rejected it some time ago. What about instituting the remain in mexico policy . That is something that you have terminated it, and are you considering reinstating it and having mexico do that . First of all, it depends on mexicos agreement and mexico has articulated publicly that it will not allow the reimplementation of remaining in mexico, number one. Number two, its been challenged in the courts and number three, remember something that remain in mexico was implemented in january of 2019. In 2019 there was almost a 100 increase in the number of encounters at our Southwest Board are over 2018. I have to ask you, finally, here we are on Super Bowl Sunday. I know you were just out in las vegas. You were dealing with Security Matters there. Are you concerned about any threats on this Super Bowl Sunday. Will the super bowl be safe . We have no specific credible threat posed to the super bowl. We are always vigilant, always ready. I was visiting with 350 department of Homeland Security personnel that dedicate themselves to the safety and security of the super bowl and to the safety and security of the American People every single day. All right. Secretary mayorkas, thank you so much. I hope you have time to watch the super bowl tonight. I appreciate your joining us very much. And when we come back, the national cochair of President Bidens 2024 Campaign Mitch landrieu joins me next. Campaig landrieu joins me next does tha. Now, save 50 on the sleep Number Limited Edition smart bed. Plus, free Home Delivery when you add an Adjustable Base. Ends monday. Hi, im jason. Ive lost 228 pounds on golo. Changing your habits is the only way that gets you to lose the weight. And golo is the plan thats going to help you do that. Just take the first step, go to golo. Com. Only sleep number smart beds let you each choose your individual firmness and comfort. Your sleep number setting. And actively cools and warms up to 13 degrees on either side. Now save 50 on the sleep Number Limited