Mitch McConnell

Mitch McConnell, the Republican majority leader, stands behind the Senate’s handling of Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation as a figure whose influence reaches beyond the hearing room. As Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation became a test of whether the Senate would pause to hear her, McConnell’s public defense of Kavanaugh and his later celebration of the political response linked the confirmation fight to the Republican Party’s effort to mobilize its supporters.

Position and institutional power

With Republicans controlling the Senate, Chuck Grassley, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, formally controlled much of how Kavanaugh’s hearings would unfold. The book places McConnell just behind Grassley, but makes clear that this proximity mattered: McConnell was the majority leader, a senior figure in the party’s management of the process, and a politician known for using hard-edged tactics. The account recalls his blocking of former president Barack Obama from filling a vacant Supreme Court seat in the final year of Obama’s presidency. That earlier episode supplies context for the Kavanaugh fight: McConnell’s role was not limited to responding to Ford’s allegation after it became public; he brought a record of using the Senate’s procedural power to secure a consequential judicial outcome.

The narrative also shows that Republican leaders initially had reasons to consider how their treatment of Ford would appear. The midterm elections were approaching, and Republicans were losing support among women. The Senate’s all-male Republican contingent risked evoking the Clarence Thomas hearings if it confronted a woman making an allegation of sexual assault. Grassley and Donald Trump were promising respectful treatment, while Trump’s aides reportedly warned against attacking Ford. In that moment, the appearance of restraint had political value. The account does not attribute those assurances to McConnell personally, but places him within the leadership structure that would soon move from that tentative posture toward a more forceful defense of Kavanaugh.

Pressure over Ford’s testimony

On Friday, September 21, as Ford’s lawyers were trying to negotiate the terms of her appearance, a confidential list of demands sent to Grassley’s team appeared on CNN. The account identifies the leak as apparently coming from a Republican staff member, not as an action by McConnell. That same day, Trump publicly questioned Ford’s allegation, arguing that if the attack had happened as she described, she or her parents would have reported it to local law enforcement. At an evangelical gathering, McConnell promised that the Senate would “plow right through” and confirm Kavanaugh.

The sequence made McConnell’s words part of the pressure bearing on Ford’s decision. That evening, Republican staff on the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary announced that the committee would vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation the following Monday. Ford was told that if she wanted to appear, she had to confirm by 10:00 p.m. that Friday. The deadline came from the committee staff, not from a statement quoted directly from McConnell; nonetheless, his promise to proceed without delay reinforced the impression that the confirmation process was moving ahead on a fixed course. Ford’s lawyer Debra Katz later described the situation as being about to be steamrolled. For Ford’s team, McConnell’s public commitment to press forward stood in sharp contrast to the earlier language of respect.

From accusation to partisan confrontation

By Monday, September 24, McConnell was speaking from the Senate floor in a sharply different register. He accused Democrats of conducting a “shameful smear campaign” against Kavanaugh. The book places this declaration amid Republicans’ increasingly vigorous defense of the judge after further allegations emerged. Kavanaugh released a letter saying he would not withdraw from the process. A Republican committee staffer later described the arrival of Michael Avenatti as damaging to the credibility of the other accusers, but the account does not attribute that assessment to McConnell. McConnell’s own contribution was public and political: he framed the dispute as an attack on Kavanaugh by Democrats.

The distinction between the allegation and the partisan argument around it is central to McConnell’s role in the narrative. Ford’s account had brought the question of hearing a woman’s allegation into the confirmation process; McConnell’s language recast the conflict as a Democratic campaign against the nominee. The book does not present him as a witness to the events Ford described or as a participant in the committee’s questioning of her. His influence appears instead in the broader political framing and in the leadership’s insistence that the process continue toward a vote.

Confirmation and political consequence

After Kavanaugh’s confirmation vote, McConnell held a press conference. Megan Twohey observed that he, like the White House counsel watching the proceedings, appeared pleased. The account connects that reaction to two outcomes: Kavanaugh had joined a new Supreme Court majority, and the confirmation fight may also have produced an unexpected political benefit for Republicans. McConnell described the protesters opposing the process as a “virtual mob that’s assaulted all of us in the course of this process has turned our base on fire.” His formulation made the conflict’s political consequence explicit: he presented protest not simply as opposition to Kavanaugh, but as something that could intensify the Republican base’s commitment.

The book sets that result alongside signs that the #MeToo movement’s reach extended beyond the confirmation. Protesters had confronted Republican senators and gathered at McConnell’s home; elsewhere, McDonald’s workers staged a coast-to-coast walkout over sexual-harassment policies, and CBS chairman Leslie Moonves resigned during the wider reckoning. Those developments do not undo Kavanaugh’s confirmation, and the narrative cautions against treating that vote as the final measure of the movement’s fate. McConnell’s importance lies in the collision the episode exposes: a public confrontation over whether Ford would be heard ended in a confirmation that strengthened the Court’s conservative majority, while McConnell described the opposition as a force that had energized his party.