Watch: McConnell Smirks, Gloats, and Says Now He’d Confirm a SCOTUS Nominee in a Presidential Election Year

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) Tuesday afternon was asked if he would allow a Supreme Court nominee to be confirmed during a presidential election year, now that Donald Trump is President. The longest-serving Republican Senate leader in history, McConnell delivered a response that was true to form.

“Should a Supreme Court justice die next year, what will your position be on filling that spot?” an attendee at the Paducah Chamber luncheon asked McConnell.

The 77-year old six-term Senator paused, took a sip of a glass of iced tea, smirked, and gloated, telling the room, “Oh, we’d fill it.”

The audience laughed, as CNN reported. McConnell’s remarks can be viewed below, and via WPSD-TV.

McConnell’s greatest – or worst – legacy may be that he co-opted a rightful and legal U.S Supreme Court confirmation out from under President Barack Obama, offering no constitutional defense for stealing the appointment of Judge Merrick Garland. McConnell’s claim was that in a presidential election year “the people” should make the decision as to who will sit on the highest court in the land.

That does not appear anywhere in the U.S. Constitution.

And now that there is a Republican in the White House and McConnell and his fellow Republicans control the body that confirms who is allowed to be appointed to the third branch of government, his story has changed.

McConnell, perhaps even worse, shared his thoughts on what he sees as his only priority: getting conservative judges confirmed to the federal bench.

“I remember during the tax bill, people were agonizing over whether one part of the tax bill was permanent or not. I said, ‘Look, the only way the tax bill is permanent depends on the next election,'” McConnell said. “Because people have different views about taxes in the two parties and they approach it differently when they get in power.”

“What can’t be undone is a lifetime appointment to a young man or woman who believes in the quaint notion that the job of the judge is to follow the law,” he said. “That’s the most important thing we’ve done in the country, which cannot be undone.”

Many would argue that some of the judges and justices McConnell has allowed to be confirmed to the federal bench are not interested in following the law, but in returning the nation to a time when those laws did not exist.

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