Senate Majortity Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says there is no doubt Judge Neil Gorsuch will be confirmed to the Supreme Court. (AP File Photo)

(CNSNews.com) - “It’s highly, highly unlikely” that Judge Neil Gorsuch will get 60 votes for confirmation to the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday.

But over on “Fox News Sunday,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said it doesn’t matter: “Yes, we're going to confirm Judge Gorsuch this week,” he told host Chris Wallace.

McConnell said he doesn’t know if he can get eight Democrats to join 52 Republicans in confirming Gorsuch. “There are Democrats who have not yet announced their position,” he noted. (So far, only three Democrats have said they will vote to confirm Gorsuch.)

If he can’t get 60 votes to break a Democrat filibuster, McConnell and his fellow Republicans could change Senate rules – the so-called nuclear option – so Gorsuch could be confirmed by a majority vote.

“Judge Gorsuch deserves to be confirmed,” McConnell said. “Exactly how that happens, Chris, will be up to our Democratic colleagues. I think it is noteworthy that no Supreme Court justice has ever, in the history of our country, been stopped by a partisan filibuster, ever.

"And in fact, the business of filibustering judges is a fairly recent invention, ironically, of the now minority in the Senate, the Democrats."

McConnell said Schumer is the one who convinced Democrats to start filibustering judges during the George W. Bush administration.

Wallace asked McConnell, “You say that he'll be confirmed one way or the other, so does that mean if you can't stop a filibuster, that you will go to the nuclear option and change the Senate rules so that you can cut off debate with 51 votes and confirm him?”

“Look, what I'm telling you is that Judge Gorsuch is going to be confirmed. The way in which that occurs is in the hands of the Democratic minority. And I think during the course of the week, we'll find out exactly how this will end. But it will end with his confirmation.”

McConnell pointed to the Clarence Thomas nomination, “the most controversial Supreme Court nomination in history.”

“He was confirmed for the Supreme Court 52-48. Just for your listeners to know, all it takes to get a filibuster in the Senate is for any one of the 100 senators to say you have to get 60 votes.”

But in the case of Clarence Thomas, “not a single senator, not one -- not Ted Kennedy, not Joe Biden -- no one said you had to get 60 votes,” McConnell said.

“There's no rational basis, no principled reason for voting against Neil Gorsuch. And that's what's before the Senate this week,” McConnell told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”