President Joe Biden served up some rare bipartisan praise on Tuesday, crediting Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell with urging conservative men to get their COVID-19 vaccine shots.
The Democratic chief executive has chided Republicans for, in his view, not being serious enough about striking bipartisan deals on pandemic economic relief and infrastructure upgrades. They have been more than willing to say the same about him.
But after the top Senate Republican said of Biden, “a moderate he has not been,” the longtime Delaware senator said McConnell deserves credit for his words on the coronavirus vaccine.
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With many GOP men telling pollsters and members of the media they do not plan to get the jab, Biden described McConnell’s message as, “‘No, no, take the vaccine.”
The president called getting inoculated against the again-spreading-in-the-United States virus a “patriotic responsibility,” adding he thinks his longtime Senate colleague “agrees.”
Thirty percent of Republicans and evangelicals told a recent Kaiser Family Foundation survey they will “definitely not” get a vaccine.
“People who said they would ‘definitely not’ receive a vaccine were asked to identify the main reason for their decision. The most common reason, at 17%, was that the vaccines are too new and not enough information is known about their long-term effects,” the foundation said in a summary of its findings. (The poll has a 3-percentage-point margin of error.)
Both the president and McConnell, who this week described him as a “terrific person” and friend, appear to realize the uphill battle they face with many vaccine-skeptical conservatives.
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Here’s why, according to Kaiser: “But informing people in the ‘definitely not’ camp that scientists have been working on the technology used in the vaccines for about 20 years, among other arguments, did little to change their minds. Only about 6% said hearing that argument made them more likely to get the vaccine.”
