The White House is hitting congressional Republicans with ever-sharper rhetorical blows as years of ill will and election-year posturing threaten to kill what was already shaping up to be a slim legislative agenda.

As the extended congressional summer break approaches, both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue are echoing with insults, catty tweets and fiery accusations.

Obama and senior administration officials have disparaged Republicans for “cowardice” on gun control , castigated GOP members they claim to have “never heard of” and accused them of being “not willing to do [their] most basic job under the Constitution.”

They even have found fault with GOP-planned moments of silence for victims of the Orlando nightclub massacre, with Obama tweeting that Senate Republicans, by blocking new gun-control measures, “failed the American people.”