Moderate Republicans are skeptical of Biden’s unity efforts

Republican lawmakers with penchants for bipartisanship reacted with skepticism to President Biden’s first joint address to Congress, as he continued his efforts to woo the group on supporting critical pieces of high-dollar legislation.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), who stood up and clapped multiple times during the commander-in-chief’s speech, told reporters after the fact that she wasn’t “overly inspired” by what she heard. “It was a long list of things that President Biden seeks to try to do his first year of his term,” the moderate senator said, going on to note that she “was looking for more of an uplift and an outreach on the bipartisan note that we heard from the inauguration speech.”