WATCH: Trump Says “We Have A Very Good Chance” of SCOTUS Overturning Pre-Existing Conditions Protections as Vulnerable GOP Senators Downplay Odds

As they rush through a lifetime Supreme Court nominee who has criticized the Affordable Care Act, desperate GOP senators are telling voters “don’t worry about the ACA” as its fate rests with the Supreme Court – despite having “spent the past decade trying to eradicate the 2010 law.” But President Trump said the quiet part out loud last night at his NBC town hall, when he said Republicans “would like to terminate” the health care law that protects people with pre-existing conditions and bragged that “we have a very good chance of doing it” as the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments in the GOP lawsuit one week after Election Day.

Senate Republicans have spent the entire cycle trying to cover up their records of voting to gut coverage protections for people with pre-existing conditions while at the same time refusing to oppose their party’s lawsuit to dismantle the ACA and those protections. Republicans have been pushing “empty promises” on health care and running false and misleading ads while failing to articulate a plan that would keep pre-existing conditions protections intact if their party’s lawsuit succeeds in overturning the ACA. As nearly 8 in 10 Americans say they don’t want the Supreme Court to strike down the ACA’s pre-existing conditions protections, the bottom line is that health care has become the “party’s albatross” and a “political liability” for the GOP that “could help determine control of the Senate.”

WATCH: Trump says “we’d like to terminate” the ACA and “we have a very good chance of doing it.”

Read more about how vulnerable Senate Republicans are suddenly underselling the chances of the anti-ACA lawsuit they support:

Axios: Republicans’ Supreme Court message: Don’t worry about the ACA

• The big picture: After promising for 10 years to get rid of the Affordable Care Act, and with a lawsuit pending at the Supreme Court that could do exactly that, Republicans are making a new argument: c’mon, nobody’s getting rid of the Affordable Care Act.

• Between the lines: The ACA is on the chopping block yet again at the Supreme Court.

• What they’re saying: “Nobody believes the Supreme Court is going to strike down the Affordable Care Act,” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said during a debate Monday night in Kentucky.

• Reality check: Republican attorneys general and the Trump administration are asking the Supreme Court to strike down the entire law, and will make that case in oral arguments on Nov. 10.

The Hill: Republicans: Supreme Court won’t toss ObamaCare

• Senate Republicans are downplaying the chances that the Supreme Court will strike down ObamaCare as Democrats seek to hammer the GOP on the issue ahead of the elections.

• If the lawsuit succeeds, roughly 20 million people would lose health insurance, and popular protections for people with preexisting conditions would be thrown out.

• But Republicans — who have spent the past decade trying to eradicate the 2010 law — are dismissing this possibility. They argue that Democrats are blowing the chances of the challenge prevailing out of proportion, noting that legal experts across the spectrum have called the lawsuit’s arguments weak.

• The Republicans’ effort to downplay a challenge to the ACA is striking given their criticism of the Supreme Court’s prior rulings on the controversial law and their legislative moves to repeal it.

• But at the same time, congressional Republicans are not directly saying that they oppose the lawsuit, which would mean breaking from President Trump, whose administration is in court in support of the challenge. 

Fox News: Republicans downplay odds of Supreme Court repealing ObamaCare at Barrett confirmation hearing

• Senate Republicans downplayed the odds of the Supreme Court repealing the Affordable Care Act at Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearing, as Democrats portrayed the conservative judge as an existential threat to the landmark health care law. 

• For years, Republicans have pledged to eliminate the decade-old law, commonly referred to as ObamaCare. But they appeared to backtrack during confirmation hearings for Barrett, President Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, with the November election just a few weeks away. 

• The Supreme Court is slated to hear oral arguments challenging the constitutionality of the ACA on Nov. 10, one week after the presidential election — something that Democrats have used to repeatedly hammer Barrett. Trump has repeatedly indicated he will nominate a judge who would rule against the ACA.

ABC News: On campaign trail, vulnerable GOP senators play down a more conservative Supreme Court

• With her conservative voting record and a judicial philosophy calling for a strict interpretation of the Constitution, Barrett would likely move the court solidly to the right — and potentially cast a deciding vote to overturn or restrict Roe v. Wade, which enshrined a woman’s right to an abortion, and invalidate the Affordable Care Act. 

• On the campaign trail, rather than touting that prospect, several prominent Republican senators up for reelection are downplaying a possible conservative shift on the court in an attempt to avoid a potential backlash on Election Day.

• Pressed on what will happen to the 23 million Americans insured under the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court, which hears the Trump administration’s challenge to President Barack Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment on Nov. 10, strikes it down, Daines used a similar argument as Ernst and Tillis, but this time about the ACA.

• “I think it’s the worst poker playing I’ve ever seen,” said Jeff Timmer, a veteran GOP strategist and former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, in an interview Friday. “They’re bluffing…She has a clear paper trail on abortion…I mean, is Trump going to withdraw the lawsuit? It’s ludicrous to say that it’s not going to happen. That’s the impetus for getting her confirmed ahead of time because it’s politically dangerous for them to rush forward.”

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