Congress eyes end to military coronavirus vaccine mandate

WASHINGTON >> Congress is exploring whether to jettison a coronavirus vaccine mandate on military service members as part of a roughly $800 billion bill to reauthorize the Pentagon, a concession meant to win Republican votes on the vital end-of-year package.

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., claimed Sunday that he had worked out the arrangement directly with President Biden. McCarthy described the compromise as his party’s “first victory” since the GOP won control of the House in the midterm elections.

“We will secure lifting that vaccine mandate on our military,” McCarthy said on Fox News’s “Sunday Morning Futures.”