GOP attacks Biden over pandemic response while fighting key tools to curb the virus

Republicans are cranking up their crusade against federal vaccine mandates, making their resistance to the Biden administration's pandemic response efforts a prominent rallying cry in the GOP — even as they simultaneously criticize the President for failing to get the virus under control.

From the outset, the GOP has been fighting vaccine mandates at the federal, state and local level, through both legislation and court challenges. But most recently, they're digging in their heels over a deal to keep the government's lights on, with conservatives in the Senate threatening to delay quick passage of a short-term funding bill — and thus forcing a temporary shut down over the weekend — unless it prohibits money for Biden's federal vaccine mandate.

"I think the folks back home want to know how hard we're fighting for them, that the jobs back home are as important as keeping the federal government open," said Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, one of the Republicans in favor of the shutdown strategy. "That's the hypocrisy up here. ... The federal government needs to feel the pressure of what a vaccine mandate really does."