Obama snaps at Congress for dragging feet on Zika prevention bill

The days leading up to a holiday weekend always feel impossibly long (happy Monday!), but for those in Congress, this week might be downright interminable. President Obama has scolded lawmakers for dragging their feet on a Zika prevention funding bill, claiming, "They should not be going off on recess before this is done."

"To the extent that we're not handling this thing on the front end, we're going to have bigger problems on the back end," Obama said.

Health officials say the mosquito-borne virus — declared a public health emergency in February — poses a larger threat to the U.S. than initially thought. Zika has been confirmed to be linked to the birth defect microcephaly, and is thought to be linked to other conditions. Obama's scolding, however, will likely have little impact on getting Congress to reach a compromise.

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So far, the House has only provided about half of the $1.1 billion approved by the Senate for Zika prevention — and that is still a far cry from the $1.9 billion the White House has proposed. Even more, the House bill mainly shifts money from Ebola prevention funds.

"Given that I have, at least, pretty vivid memories of how concerned people were about Ebola, the notion that we would stop monitoring as effectively and dealing with Ebola in order to deal with Zika doesn't make a lot of sense," Obama said.