The verbal barbs are just the beginning of what is likely to be one of the nastiest political fights in recent American history over Republicans’ plans to confirm a successor to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg before the presidential election. After a slew of moderates and electorally vulnerable members of their caucus came out to say they support moving ahead with a nomination, Republicans appear to hold the advantage in the brewing confirmation fight — especially after Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, softened her position on potentially voting to confirm a Trump nominee on Wednesday.

“As we await the hurricane of misrepresentations and bad-faith attacks that seem almost guaranteed to pour out, we need to understand, in clear terms, why our colleague from New York is a uniquely non-credible messenger when it comes to the Senate’s role in judicial confirmations,” McConnell said Tuesday. “[Modern judicial nomination] acrimony really got going in the early 2000s, when a group of Senate Democrats took the almost-never-used tactic of filibustering nominations and turned it into a constant routine for the first time ever.”

McConnell said it was Schumer who was “the driving force behind those tactics.” He said he was reading from 2003 New York newspaper clippings as he quoted the minority leader: “‘I am the leader (of the filibuster movement), and you know, I’m proud of it,’ said the senator from Brooklyn.’”

McConnell has made it his quest to conform judges and adding another Supreme Court Justice to the list of his confirmation.