President Barack Obama laid into Senate Republicans on Friday for holding up Loretta Lynch’s confirmation vote — calling the GOP’s delay “embarrassing” in his sharpest attack yet over the nomination fight that’s dragged on for five months.

“Nobody can describe a reason for it beyond political gamesmanship in the Senate,” Obama said during a news conference with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. “I have to say that there are times where the dysfunction in the Senate just goes too far. This is an example of it.”


He added, as he shook his head, pursed his lips and jammed his finger audibly into the podium: “This is embarrassing, a process like this.”

The confirmation saga for Lynch, first nominated in November, has dragged on for several reasons. First, Senate Democrats agreed to punt her nomination from last year’s lame-duck session into the new Senate under Republican control.

Now, Lynch is stuck in a Senate dispute that is unrelated to her nomination — an anti-human trafficking bill that is snagged in a controversy over abortion. Republicans say they won’t move to the attorney general vote until the trafficking legislation passes.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell “has already announced that the Lynch nomination will get a vote,” Don Stewart, McConnell’s deputy chief of staff, said Friday in response to Obama’s remarks. “Members are continuing to work to find a way to overcome the Democrats’ filibuster of a bipartisan bill that will help prevent women and children from being sold into sex slavery.

“Once that bill’s complete, the Lynch nomination is next,” he added.

Republicans have also been angered by her view that Obama’s executive actions on immigration — which could defer deportations and give work permits for more than four million immigrants here illegally — were legal.

Lynch was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee on Feb. 26, so her nomination has lingered on the Senate floor for 50 days. That is longer than the previous seven attorneys general had to wait from committee approval to floor confirmation vote — combined.

Obama, on Friday, called the situation “crazy” because no one has disputed that Lynch doesn’t have the qualifications to be the nation’s top law enforcement official.

“Call Loretta Lynch for a vote,” Obama demanded. “Enough. Enough.”

Sarah Wheaton contributed to this report.