Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Friday that the most important decision he made in his four-decade political career was to stop former President Barack Obama from filling the Supreme Court vacancy created by Antonin Scalia's death in 2016 "on the way out the door."
"The president didn't have that opportunity," the Kentucky Republican told the annual meeting of the Faith & Freedom Coalition at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington.
McConnell opposed confirmation hearings for Obama nominee federal Appeals Court Judge Merrick Garland.
"The nomination will be made by the next president," McConnell told Newsmax in a May 2016 interview, "whomever that may be. Period."
McConnell said Friday that Justice Neil Gorsuch, who was appointed by President Donald Trump "was a superb choice — and we will see that for a long time."
Gorsuch is "someone who holds up the laws as written in the Constitution rather than how you wanted it come out," he said.
The Faith & Freedom Coalition's three-day meeting began Thursday. Vice President Mike Pence will keynote the closing dinner Saturday night.
McConnell, whose political career began as a Jefferson County judge in 1977 before being first elected to the Senate in 1984, declared in his upbeat speech: "The last 16 months have been the single best for conservative values since I came to Washington in 1985.
"This is not hyperbole," he said. "This is a fact."
McConnell noted the successes of the Trump administration, including the record-low unemployment rate, deregulation efforts, conservative judicial appointments and tax cuts.
"Republicans are getting Washington out of the way so American workers and job creators can build an economy that is the envy of the world.
"Today is a new day," he said. "Now, Americans have a government that rejects those tired left-wing policies of divisional government that know capitalism actually works."
The majority leader slammed Democrats for obstructionism at nearly every turn, particularly on Trump's appointees.
"They have decided that it's more fun to be the resistance than to do their job and help us govern the country," McConnell said. "They are pulling every trick in the book to delay, obstruct and deny our president the team he deserves.
"Our Democratic colleagues are trying to run out the clock," he added. "I'm not going to let them succeed."
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