Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has come right out and said he’ll do whatever he can to undermine President Joe Biden if he is reelected Majority Leader during the 2022 midterm elections. In an interview on the Hugh Hewitt show on Monday, McConnell said that if he is restored as majority leader he will block Biden from filling a vacancy on the Supreme Court.

“I think in the middle of a presidential election if you have a Senate of the opposite of the party of the president, you have to go back to the 1880s to find the last time a vacancy was filled,” McConnell said. “So I think it’s highly unlikely. In fact, no, I don’t think either party if it controlled — if it were different from the president — would confirm a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell tells @hughhewitt that keeping Scalia's seat vacant until Gorsuch's 2017 confirmation is "the single most consequential thing I've done in my time as majority leader of the Senate." pic.twitter.com/5CBEmLrx6W

— The Recount (@therecount) June 14, 2021

McConnell always tries to say he’s been consistent on this issue but his actions sure don’t suggest that. While the GOP held the majority in the run-up to the 2016 election he blocked then-President Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, Mediaite reports. But McConnell is nothing if not spineless, and when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died he hastily confirmed then-President Donald Trump’s nominee Amy Coney Barrett.

Because that’s the kind of man McConnell is.

He has obsequiously hidden behind the mantra that if the Senate and Presidency are controlled by opposing parties, it will make it easier for the President to scupper the GOP for the next two years — if a Supreme Court vacancy arises.

And folks, that may happen. Progressives have called for Justice Stephen Breyer, who’s 82, to step down. But considering what may be up for grabs come 2022, this may not be particularly good thinking. Breyer is a Democrat. There is, however, considerable logic behind this because liberals fully understand they risk losing their weak hold in the Senate during the 2022 election. That could make it much harder for Biden to nominate a liberal justice to replace Breyer, CNN notes.

“Only by him retiring at the end of this session would President Joe Biden be assured of having a Democratic-controlled Senate to confirm his replacement and preserve the three liberal-leaning seats on the Court.”

So of course McConnell is salivating over this, and Hewitt, a conservative radio host couldn’t resist asking him if a replacement for Breyer would be given “a fair shot at a hearing” — if the GOP reclaims the Senate majority in 2023.

“We’d have to wait and see what happens,” McConnell said.

Well, folks, I think you already know the answer to Hewitt’s question. All I can say is I hope the Democrats are paying attention.