GOP senator accuses Obama of ‘bullying’ Supreme Court

A top Senate Republican is accusing President Obama of “bullying the Supreme Court” in an effort to uphold a key part of his healthcare law.

Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) issued a sharp statement just minutes after Obama told reporters that the court was wrong to take up the case challenging his landmark law.

“Instead of bullying the Supreme Court, the president should spend his time preparing for the reality that the court may soon rule against his decision to illegally issue tax penalties and subsidies on Americans in two-thirds of the country,” Barrasso said.

At a press conference earlier Monday, Obama said that the looming court case King v. Burwell “shouldn’t have even been taken up.”

Justices are expected to hand down their decision in the case at the end of this month. If Obama loses, 6.4 million people who sign up for health insurance on federal exchanges could lose their subsidies.

Obama rejected the basis for the challenge, reiterating that the authors of the Affordable Care Act “never intended” to block people on federal exchanges from obtaining the subsidies.

The Obama administration has repeatedly said it has no way to blunt the impact if the decision in King v. Burwell goes against the healthcare law.

But Obama did acknowledge that there was one way to resolve the dispute: “Congress could fix this whole thing with a one-sentence provision,” he said.

In his statement on Monday, Barrasso pushed back against the idea — warning that the GOP will not pass “a so called ‘one-sentence’ fake fix.”