Obama urges lawmakers to agree on Zika funding

President Obama called on Congress Friday to break a partisan deadlock over funding to fight the Zika virus before lawmakers start their summer break later this month.

“I expect Congress to get this funding done before they leave for vacation, before they adjourn,” Mr. Obama told reporters after a briefing in the Oval Office. “That’s part of their basic responsibility.”

In an apparent reference to Republican lawmakers, Mr. Obama blamed the impasse on “people trying to attach legislation on a bunch of unrelated topics to this funding.”

“It’s been politics as usual rather than responding smartly to a very serious public health request,” he said.

Lawmakers deadlocked over funding this week, as Senate Democrats blocked a Republican proposal that they said fell short of the challenge posed by the virus. Republicans accused Democrats of playing politics, and it’s unclear when Congress will revisit the request by Mr. Obama for $1.9 billion.

Mr. Obama received a briefing on the virus Friday from Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Mathews Burwell; Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health; and Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Tom Frieden.

“This is actually something that we could reduce the risks if Congress does the right thing and allocates the dollars that are needed right now to get it done,” Mr. Obama said.

“We feel fairly confident that we can develop a vaccine for Zika and that would help a whole lot of people and allow us to get out in front of this problem before it’s in the continental United States, but that requires resources.”

He said the problem is that “we have not seen the House and the Senate come together in a sensible way to put forward the dollars that we have requested that have been budgeted to get the job done.”

Lawmakers are leaving Washington for the Fourth of July holiday and will begin a seven-week summer recess later this month.