President Trump took to Twitter on Wednesday to praise Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, shortly after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took steps toward holding a final vote on Saturday.

"He is a fine man and great intellect. The country is with him all the way!" Trump wrote.


Polls released in the last week show public opinion deeply divided on Kavanaugh, following his appearance and that of one of the women accusing him of sexual misconduct, Christine Blasey Ford, in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee last week.

An NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Wednesday showed that 48 percent of respondents did not support his confirmation, while 41 percent do. A Quinnipiac University poll released Monday showed similar percentages of respondents who think Kavanaugh should not be confirmed, 48 percent, and those who do, 42 percent.

Both polls show that support for Kavanaugh by Republicans remains high: 84 percent of Republicans think he should be confirmed as opposed to 8 percent of Democrats, according to the Quinnipiac poll, and 88 percent of Republicans in the NPR poll said they support him, opposed to a mere 5 percent of Democrats.

Ford has alleged that in 1982, while the two were in high school, Kavanaugh held her down, put his hand over her mouth, and tried to remove her clothes. Kavanaugh has denied the allegations.