CBS anchor corners senior Biden adviser with her own answer while grilling her on border crisis: 'What is the White House doing?'

CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan grilled senior Biden adviser Keisha Lance Bottoms on Sunday over President Joe Biden's inaction on the border crisis.

While interviewing Bottoms on "Face the Nation," Brennan wasted no time getting down to brass tacks. With Republicans and Democrats both placing blame for the border crisis at Biden's feet, Brennan wanted to know exactly what the administration is doing to alleviate the crisis.

"What is the administration doing to urge migrants not to come?" she asked.

Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, did not directly answer the question. Instead, she focused her response on Title 42 ending this week, which means migrants will be allowed to stay in the U.S. while immigration courts process their asylum requests.

Brennan used Bottoms' question-dodging response to press her point.

"This will means more people coming into the United States," Brennen pointed out. "So that's why I come back to that fundamental question of what is the White House doing to say, don't come to the border and try to claim asylum?"

Bottoms responded with a vague answer. She said the government wants "people to avail themselves of a lawful process" and said the U.S. border crisis a is "global issue." She did not say Biden is urging migrants to stop coming to the U.S.

Keisha Lance Bottoms says end of Title 42 is an issue that "affects us all"www.youtube.com

Later in the interview, Brennan questioned Bottoms over Biden's refusal to visit the U.S. border despite recently traveling to within hours of it.

"Why doesn't he go to the border? He was just in Arizona. Why wasn't it worth his time?" she asked.

At first, Bottoms suggested that logistics difficulties associated with presidential travel is why Biden has not visited the border. Then, when pressed on the issue, she deflected and said, "Well, I can't speak to why he has or has not gone."

Anything else?

At the White House press briefing on Monday, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre emphasized the "border is not open."

"I wanna be very clear to folks that the border is not open," she said.

While that may be the rhetoric coming from Biden's spokespeople, the point his critics are making is that Biden's immigration policies are inviting migrants to come to the U.S. Indeed, the border does not need an "open" sign to signal to migrants that, if they claim asylum at the border, they have a good chance of not being deported.