Photo by John Shinkle for POLITICO. McConnell confident Senate will confirm Gorsuch by April 7

The Senate will confirm President Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee before its Easter recess, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell asserted Thursday.

Trump nominated 10th U.S. Circuit Court Judge Neil Gorsuch on Jan. 31 to fill former Justice Antonin Scalia’s seat on the high court. Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings are slated to begin March 20, with Republicans aiming to have a final floor vote in April.


In a POLITICO Playbook interview with Jake Sherman and Anna Palmer on Thursday morning, the Kentucky Republican said the Senate would deal with Gorsuch “the week before the April recess,” a two-week break that kicks off on April 8.

“We’re gonna confirm him before the April recess,” McConnell said.

Gorsuch would need to win over Democrats to meet the Senate’s 60-vote threshold, unless McConnell invokes the so-called nuclear option, allowing Republicans to jam through Gorsuch’s confirmation with a simple majority.

“I think the president, to his credit, and his team found the single most outstanding circuit judge in America. It is very, very hard to argue against Gorsuch,” McConnell said, later crediting Trump for not “blow[ing] this opportunity” with his selection of Gorsuch.

The Senate leader was bullish on Gorsuch’s ability to win over Democrats, despite the decision by Senate Republicansnot to act on former President Barack Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, during the campaign, elevating the Supreme Court vacancy to a key election issue by insisting that the next president fill Scalia’s seat.

“As you know, I played arguably the single biggest role in having the vacancy there,” McConnell said. “I was prepared to take the heat because I knew that we would look completely foolish to allow the vacancy to be filled on the way out the door.”

“Politically, oddly enough, not only did it not hurt our guys who were running, it actually helped the president bring Republicans home,” he added. “And he ended up getting 90 percent of the Republican vote just like Mitt Romney did, and the single biggest issue was, ‘Who do I want to make the Supreme Court appointment?’”

The Senate, however, will also have another huge task to fulfill: passing a repeal and replacement of Obamacare, which both Congress and the White House have signaled could be on the president’s desk by recess.