Before accuser testifies, McConnell predicts Kavanaugh will be confirmed

Despite the fact that Brett Kavanaugh's accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, hasn't testified yet about her alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared Friday that Kavanaugh will be confirmed to the Supreme Court -- and soon.

"You’ve watched the fight. You’ve watched the tactics. But here’s what I want to tell you: In the very near future, Judge Kavanaugh will be on the United States Supreme Court," the Republican leader from Kentucky said in a speech at the Values Voter Summit Friday in the nation's capital.

"So, my friends, keep the faith. Don’t get rattled by all of this. We’re going to plow right through it and do our job," he said to raucous applause from the audience.

"The most consequential decision I've made in my entire career is the decision not do something, and that was to not fill the vacancy after the death of Justice Scalia," McConnell said, referring the decision to hold up President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.

On Kavanaugh, McConnell gave kudos to President Trump for nominating a "stunningly successful individual."

McConnell's remarks came shortly after Trump questioned Ford's account of the alleged assault in a tweet Friday morning.

"I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!" Trump tweeted.

McConnell also openly mocked Democratic leader Sen. Chuck Schumer for striking a deal with Republicans to let them speed up the confirmation of several conservative federal district judges in exchange for a few extra days off in August.

"If you want America to be a right-of-center nation, this last year and a half has been the best year and a half in my time in the Senate," McConnell said. "And the reason you should know that: look how angry the left is, huh? Look at it. The angrier they get, the better we’re doing."

On the transformation of the federal courts, McConnell said: “If you want to have a longtime impact on what kind of country we’re going to have for the next generation, the single most consequential thing we can do is these lifetime appointments of men and women to the court who believe that the job of a judge is to follow the law.”

“Justice Gorsuch put it this way,” McConnell said. “He said judges don’t wear red robes or blue robes; they wear black robes.”

“So these are the kind of men and women that President Trump has been sending up and we’ve been confirming, and I hope it makes you proud,” McConnell said.

“We’re changing America more than a lot of people recognize, but I’m glad you do,” he said.

The Senate Judiciary Committee has been grappling with how to handle the accusation and is currently engaged in negotiations with Ford's attorneys to set the terms under which she would be willing to testify in front of the committee by as early as next week.