The White House blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday for holding up the confirmation of President Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, saying the 'unconscionable delay' calls into question the Kentucky lawmaker's leadership abilities. The verbal strike on McConnell came after the Republican legislator said over the weekend that he wouldn't allow a vote on New York prosecutor Loretta Lynch's confirmation until the Senate passes a once bipartisan sex trafficking bill that Democrats are now refusing to support over a provision limiting funding for abortions. White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said the delay on the attorney general post reflected 'inept leadership,' not a flaw in the trafficking bill, and that the move suggested the White House could no longer trust congressional Republicans to act in good faith. The spat is the latest indication that the respective goodwill professed by the White House and GOP leaders after November's elections, when Republicans were swept into control of Congress, has since soured and is now curdling. Scroll down for video . UNCONSCIONABLE: White House spokesman Josh Earnest blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Monday for holding up the confirmation of President Barack Obama's nominee for attorney general, saying the delay calls into question the Kentucky lawmaker's leadership abilities . The verbal strike on McConnell came after the Republican legislator said over the weekend that he wouldn't allow a vote on New York prosecutor Loretta Lynch's confirmation until the Senate finishes a once bipartisan human trafficking bill that Democrats are now refusing to support over a provision limiting funding for abortions . Battling for control of the federal government with the executive branch, the first few months of the GOP's reign over the legislative branch has been marked by constant bickering with the White House and numerous veto threats. In an attempt to balance what they saw as executive overreach on the part of the president, who in November took unilateral action to save millions of illegal immigrants from deportation against the wishes of Republicans in Congress, the GOP last month attempted to hold captive funding for the Homeland Security department. The majority party ended up with egg on its face, though, when it opted to back down from the fight and appropriate money to the department rather than watching it to go into shut down mode until Democrats backed a measure to defund Obama's immigration directives - a scenario that may have never come about. House Republicans in January also stuck their finger in the eye of the Obama administration when Boehner secretly invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress. Usually, the executive branch coordinates visits with foreign heads of state. More recently, Senate Republicans wrote a letter to Iranian leaders cautioning them that a nuclear pact with the current administration may not last. The missive could undermine the tenuous negotiations the U.S. and its allies are in with the Middle Eastern country. McConnell is now using the Lynch confirmation vote as a bargaining chip in his fight to keep a provision that would place heavy restrictions on use of money for abortion in a victims fund named in the child sex trafficking bill. Democrats had already signed off on the legislation in committee before they realized that the measure was included. They have since backed away from the bill as is and accused Republicans of trying to hoodwink them, despite having had weeks to read the legislation in full before a final vote. 'If they want to have time to turn to the attorney general bill next week, we need to finish up this human trafficking bill,' McConnell said Sunday on CNN. Earnest at one point suggested that McConnell, pictured here last week at a press conferene on Captiol Hill with other Senate Republicans, is 'inept' as a leader . Obama's spokesman lit into McConnell on Monday over the play. 'You've got to hand it to Republicans, that they've taken even a measure as common sense as that and turned it into a partisan controversy,' Obama's spokesman said today. 'The fact that leader McConnell can't build bipartisan support for a child sex-trafficking bill, I think, is an indication that his leadership here in the majority is not off to a very strong start. Earnest at another point suggested that McConnell is 'inept,' The GOP leader, he said, should just take out the offending abortion measure in order to get Democrats back on board. 'I don't really understand,' he said, why the majority leader doesn't look at this situation and say, 'Let's remove the objection so we can get it passed, and get it signed into law.' Although the White House frequently threatens to veto pending bills unpalatable to Obama, Earnest wouldn't say whether Obama would sign the bill with the abortion language included. He suggested the issue is moot because Republicans don't have enough support to pass it anyway. In a sharp rebuke, the White House appeared to question whether Obama can trust McConnell and his fellow GOP leaders and 'whether their word is good with the president.' Earnest pointed out that McConnell had argued last year that Lynch's confirmation should wait until the new GOP-run Senate was seated in January, but was now claiming publicly that it was Democrats who prolonged the confirmation by waiting until 2015. The White House spokesman said he is often asked if McConnell 'is a man of his word.' This incident is not 'a very good sign of faith,' Earnest proclaimed. Ironically, Republicans' strategy to force a vote in support of the sex trafficking legislation before taking a vote on Lynch's nomination prolongs the departure of one of their least favorite Obama administration officials from the president's service: Eric Holder, pictured here to the left of the president. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid chimed in on Monday and said that McConnell 'gave his word' that Lynch would receive fair consideration. 'Now he's hedging on that,' Reid said during a speech on the Senate floor. 'Republicans simply can't govern,' Reid, the Senate's majority leader until Republican took over in January, argued. McConnell's spokesman Don Stewart blamed the trafficking bill kerfuffle on Democrats in a statement provided to the Associated Press. And given White House's hesitancy to issue a veto, he said, the president, not McConnell, should ask his party members to swallow a version of the bill it doesn't entirely agree with. 'They need to choose between a partisan filibuster and the pleas of thousands of abused children across the country,' Stewart said. 'And they need to do it soon.' Ironically, Republicans' strategy to force a vote in support of the sex trafficking legislation before taking a vote on Lynch's nomination prolongs the departure of one of their least favorite Obama administration officials from the president's service: Eric Holder. Earnest confirmed today that Holder will remain on the job,‘gettin' up early and workin' late,' as long as is 'necessary.'
The Senate majority leader won't allow a vote on Loretta Lynch's confirmation until the Senate passes a sex trafficking bill . Democrats are refusing to support the once bipartisan measure over a provision limiting funding for abortions . Obama's spokesman Josh Earnest said the confirmation vote delay reflected 'inept leadership' on McConnell's part and suggested the White House could no longer trust congressional Republicans . Spat is the latest indication that the respective goodwill professed by the White House and GOP leaders after November's elections is curdling .