(CNN) The announcement of an agreement in Congress to keep the federal government open beyond Friday comes with one significant caveat: Several Senate Republicans have threatened in recent days to shut the government down over the ongoing fight over vaccine mandates for private companies.
"Does Sen. Schumer want to shut down the economy?" Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said this week, referring to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York. "Does he want to create brown outs? Does he want to threaten national security? So as long as he makes sure we don't fund that unconstitutional mandate, we'll be ok."
"I think we should use the leverage we have to fight against what are illegal, unconstitutional and abusive mandates," said Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
The question now becomes how far are Cruz, Marshall and several of their like-minded colleagues willing to push the possibility of a shutdown to force the Biden administration into a concession on vaccine mandates.
A bit of history is useful here.
In 2013, Cruz was a freshman senator looking to make a name for himself with national conservatives (more on this in a moment). He shut the government down for 16 days in an attempt to hold the Obama administration hostage over the Affordable Care Act. Cruz's plan was simple -- and doomed: Use the shutting down of the government as leverage to force the defunding of Obamacare.
That was never going to happen. Which everyone -- up to and including Cruz -- knew. Republicans -- led by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell -- warned Cruz of the dangers of hijacking the government to charge at this particular political windmill. He did it anyway.
While the effort failed -- Democrats didn't give on the funding of Obamacare -- it worked for Cruz, politically speaking.
As the Washington Post wrote in February 2016 as Cruz was running for president:
"The drama that surrounded the shutdown — including Cruz's 21-hour Senate speech, in which he read "Green Eggs and Ham" to his daughters via the C-SPAN feed — is the defining moment of a Senate tenure that has helped make Cruz the favorite Republican presidential candidate for many conservatives.
"To those supporters, the shutdown signaled the depth of Cruz's commitment to rein in government."
Cruz went from being just some senator to being a hero in the fight against the Obama administration. The shutdown, while absolutely terrible for Republicans politically, was a very good thing for Ted Cruz.
Fast forward to today.
Cruz is yet again threatening a shutdown to accomplish something -- the removal of a mandate that private businesses with more than 100 employees are to require vaccinations -- that is a) not going to happen but b) seen as a fight for essential freedoms by the Republicans' base.
And, he is doing so as he has his eye, again, on running for president in 2024 and badly needs to win back supporters of Donald Trump who soured on the Texas Republican when he refused to endorse him at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
Cruz's wingman in this fight, Marshall, is -- and stop me if you've heard this one before -- new to the Senate and looking to make a name for himself among conservatives nationally.
As the Kansas City Star editorial board wrote Thursday:
"Giving the finger to vaccines and masks plays great with your base. Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially by the bureaucrat class. (When none other than Donald Trump is booed by his own rally crowd for recommending the jab, you know that toothpaste isn't going back in the tube.)...
"...There's no reason to think the threat of a government shutdown will be the senator's last volley in the battle for 'personal freedom' at the expense of the greater good, a speedier economic recovery, or basic common sense. Because Roger Marshall is far more interested in fighting the culture war than he is in fighting the pandemic."
Make no mistake: Neither Cruz nor Marshall has any real belief that threatening to shut the government down will change the Biden administration's mind on the vaccine mandate. It won't. What they are doing is pure political grandstanding to virtue signal to the Trump base, putting personal politics ahead of the good of the country.