Biden, allies increasingly pushing back at GOP's virus barbs

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden looked out over an audience of government scientists and framed his latest plan for fighting COVID-19 as an opportunity to at last put an end to divisiveness over the virus, calling the politicization of the issue a “sad, sad commentary.”

And then he tacked on a political dig.

Some people “on the other team,” he said Thursday, were threatening to hold up government spending and endangering the nation’s credit out of pique over vaccination requirements.

“Go figure,” he added.

It was a quick aside in a Biden speech that otherwise struck a largely bipartisan tone. But it served as fresh evidence that after taking it on the chin for months, Biden and his allies are increasingly willing to hit back, casting Republicans as the true obstacle to the nation’s recovery from the pandemic.

The Democratic president’s efforts to confront the coronavirus have long attracted a litany of fiery statements, legal challenges and more than a few barbs from his predecessor. But Biden was elected on the promise of depoliticizing the virus response and following the science, so responding in kind wasn’t seen as an option early on.

Biden aides in the early months of his presidency pressed him to ignore criticism from Republicans, arguing that responding would further inject politics into the vaccination campaign and harm his all-out effort to get Americans to roll up their sleeves.

But now, as public patience wears thin amid the emergence of the new omicron variant and some GOP lawmakers' threats to shut down the government over vaccine requirements, the White House and its allies are seizing on what they see as a political opening.

“It’s clear that Republicans have decided that the fate of the Biden presidency is tied to COVID,” said Democratic...