House and Human Services tom price that cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars. Did they violate rules . We welcome our viewers, wolf blitzer is off today. Im jim acosta. You are in the situation room. Announcer this is cnn breaking news. The breaking news tonight, a potential fatal blow to the latest republican effort to repeal obamacare. Senator john mccain announced he cannot back the latest deal, score detailing its real world impact. The measure is one vote away from failure. Republican senator rand paul announced he opposes the bill. A handful of his colleagues are voicing serious concerns about it. We are following the high stakes world of words with President Trump and dictator kim jongun, they are trading personal insult, kim calling the president mentally deranged after President Trump called am mad man. That was one of the latest tweet storm. We are also awaiting the president s arrival in alabama. He will be arriving to speak with senator luther strange, running for the seat vacated by jeff sessions. We will stand by on the decision to vote no on the Gop Health Care bill. We are covering that and more with our guests, our correspondents and specialists, theyre also standing by. Lets begin with the breaking news up on capitol hill. Cnns ryan nobles is there for us. Ryan mccains announcement seems to doom the latest effort to repeal obamacare once again. There is no doubt the grahamcassidy plan was on shaky ground on capitol hill. The fact that he announced he cannot support this legislation is there are two republicans who are vocal nos on this plan. This is what mccain said earlier this afternoon. Quote, ki not in good conscious vote for the grahamcassidy proposal. I believe we could do better working together. Republicans and democrats have not really tried. Mccain went on to say, quote, i take no pleasure announcing my opposition, far from it. The authors are my dear friends. I think the world of them. I know they are acting consistently with their beliefs and their sense of what is best for the country. So am i. And mccains decision today isnt that much of a surprise. Hes been very disappointed with the process that the republicans have used to get to this point in the health care negotiations. He believes there should be regular order, meaning Committee Hearings, debate and votes in committees as well and none of this has happened. So what happens next . Well, the bill is not completely dead yet. Because republicans have the 50 votes in their pocket necessary to pass the bill. But there are at least a dozen republican senators who are undecided and there are two, in particular, Susan Collins of maine and Lisa Murkowski of alaska who appear to be leaning no right now Republican Leadership has said they are not yet ready to abandon this effort and Lindsey Graham the author of the bill se plans to press on. The question is, jim, do one of these senators, murkowski or collins announce their opposition to the bill over the weekend . And if that happens, the Senate Majority leader Mitch Mcconnell bring the bill to the floor . We may not know the answer to that question until monday. Jim. That bill is very much on thin ice, cnn ryan nobles. If the bill dies, it will be the second time john mccain has played a role in sinking the obama repeal effort. Its get reaction from my colleague athena jones. She is 94 President Trumps golf club. The setback comes as the president is engaged in this bitter personal war of words with north koreas kim jongun. No question for the president today, a big setback on health care. Reporter hi, jim. Thats right. On the health care front, a senior white house official said mccains decision undeniably hurts the effort. We are still hoping to get to 50 voerkts signaling the president isnt giving up after seven years of gop promises. He says the president will be pushing senators to support the repeal bill this weekend. We are seeing heated words between President Trump and kim jongun, trump calling eun rocketman and a madman, kim calling the president a rogue, a gangster, a frightened dog and a dotard, which essentially means an old, se nile lunatic. Its an escalating war of words with no end in sight. President trump tweeting this morning, kim jongun of north korea, who is obviously a madman, who doesnt mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before this after north koreas Supreme Leader fired back at trump. The first time the regime has ever released a statement in his name, accusing the president of being a mentally deran himmed u. S. Dotard. The extraordinary personal barbs coming on the heels of the president s address earlier this week to the United Nations general assembly, where he debloid his new nickname for the north korean dictator. Rocketman is on a Suicide Mission for himself and for his regime. Reporter kim is warning that mr. Trump would pay dearly for his speech calling for totally destroying the dprk. The United States has great strength and patience. But if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. Reporter despite the apocalyptic rhetoric, secretary of state Rex Tillerson saying today, the u. S. Has not given up on finding a diplomatic solution. We will continue our efforts in the diplomatic arena, but all of our military options, as the president has said is on the table. Once we can assess the nature of this threat the president will make a decision regarding the appropriate actions. Reporter amid the rising threat from north korea russia is fake news. The president taking to twitter to reprise his longrunning complaints about the russia probe, writing, the russia hoax continues. Now its ads on facebook. We will continue our own investigation into what happened on facebook in this election. Reporter the statement coming in the wake that facebook will provide more than 3,000 russialinked ads investigating the 2016 election meddling. This as trump has his eyes focused squarely on another election. The republican runoff for an Alabama Senate seat. It pits the establishment point, luther strange, whom trump also supports against judge rye moore, a conservative fire brand backed by trumps former chief strategist steve bannon. And there the a god in everyone that is in this campaign. I dont think that god is just on your side. I dont think that god is just on my side. I think he is on both of our side, i think she on the president s side t. One thing i do know is the president is on my side. Trump tweeting this morning, well be in alabama tonight. Luther strange has gained mightily since my endorsement, but will be very close. He loves balabama and so do i. We will be watching closely the president s speech tonight to see what argument he makes for luther strange. Whether he mentioned mccains announcement today and whether he continues to bash kim jongun in what is likely to be a red meatfilled speech before an enthusiastic crowd. We will be watching for the fireworks. Thank you very much as kim jongun and President Trump throw barbs at each other. They are running an above ground test of a Hydrogen Bomb. Cnn pentagon correspondent star story. Reporter the question is could the North Koreans want some sort of hbomb attack or test as they might call it and what would the u. S. Do about it . North korea already is getting ready for its next missile launch, according to administration officials, possibly a missile that could hit the u. S. Kim jongun now threatening the highest level of heart lane countermeasure in history following President Trumps speech at the u. N. North koreas foreign minister suggesting the regime may launch potential devastation. I think this could probably mean the strongest ever Hydrogen Bomb test on or above the pacific oaks. Reporter detonating the Hydrogen Bomb above ground could change everything. What you are looking at is from a radioactive standpoint is large areas of east asia, the western pacific, all the way potentially to the west coast of the United States being blanketed by radiation. Reporter the u. S. Intelligence community will now watch for very particular signs. So what they could potentially see is a special work being done on the missile, itself. They could see certain things being moved around that would potentially indicate that a warhead of particular variety was being put inside the missile. Reporter kim matching trump on the battle of words. I will surely and definitely tame the mentally deranged u. S. Dotard with fire. President trump responding kim jongun of forth korea, who is obviously a madman who doesnt mind starving or killing his people, will be tested like never before. All after dooms day warning from President Trump at the u. N. That if the u. S. Is forced to defend itself or its allies we will have no choice but to totally destroy north korea. Reporter the head of the u. S. Strategic command who would help lead any attack on north korea making the case for u. S. Fire power as a deterrent to kim. Were right there, watching all the time. Few want to go that way, we are ready to deter an attack on america, or our allie. Reporter north korea is far from deterred. All indications are to continue to proceed with their weapons program. Jim. Barbara starr of the pentagon. We have a member of the Armed Services committee, reuben g giega. Let me get your reaction, senator mccain essentially saying, no, im not on board once again with this Health Care Effort that the republicans were hoping to come to fruition next week. It sounds like its not going to happen unless somebody changes their mind among those undecided votes. As an arizonaen and american im proud of senator mccain making the decision he has stuck to his princeles. He is right. We need a deliberative process, there is no need to order onesixth of the people off insurance or affecting their Health Insurance in a negative more than without actually talking to the public. You know, this bill. The grand passing bill has basically been introduced and the fact that theyre trying to rush it tells me they are hiding something. They need to wait for the cbo score so americans know what they are getting. How remarkable is it to see john mccain essentially saving not once but a couple of times now Barack Obamas sick legislative achievement . Look, at the end of the day, senator mcka inis a true public servant, has always been a true public servant. I think he is doing this for the right reasons, he wants to set the tone correctly and bring this back to deliberative process. Thats why he is doi doing this. They want to see it fixed. But by the end of the day, he wants to make sure there is a legacy of the Senate Getting back to a body that actually listens an debates openly, especially anything that has to do we are ordering onesixth of the u. S. Economy. Let me ask you about north korea. Weve seen this back and forth between President Trump and kim jongun. I suppose most americans are sitting back watching this oh, this is just talk. Its just bluster. Right. When you look at it from your standpoint, the this just bluster . The problem is there the bluster, but it can easily get into miscalculation where one side decides they have to take a pre exhibitive action to protect themselves or get some type of advantage. But the president did some correct things. He finally entered into a signature regime i believe and many of us believe can be helpful and compelling north korea to the floor now. He has to follow it include and make sure theyre in force. If we do that, we hope we have a better chance of stopping north korea. This has to be a longterm strategy and a comprehensive strategy which the president hasnt laid out. Thats what he has to do next. Continue with the sanctions he has right now. Layout the comprehensive strategy, not just to us but to our allies so we have a future path so they can understand whats going on. The last thing we need is instability when you do you el with two Nuclear Armed countries. Especially one, north korea as desperate as they are. What about this worrisome threat that came from the North Koreans, that they may test a Hydrogen Bomb over the Pacific Ocean . Do you think thats an empty threat . This is the problem when you get into a war of words, you cant take anything, you cant Say Something is not a threat, or a threat. We are have to take it at face value. It clearly would be a huge escalation when it comes to the use of nuclear weapons. I think there has to be some type of response to that and part of that i think would be making sure the rest of the world understands that you have essentially, not essentially created a pariah state by acting in that manner and they should really join us, specifically russia and china and enforcing the sanctions we have imposed. There are a lot more things we should be doing. We are not doing them right now, including fuel sanctions. Cut off the fuel. To north korea, we did it many years ago to bring them back to the table. We have not done that. We get to that situation, that i ma be the road we sister to go down. When you said there may have to be a response, if they carry out this Hydrogen Bomb test in the Pacific Ocean, does that mean a military reasons . Senator marky was on in the last hour, he says there is no military response to these threats and provocations, but the potential for things unraveling and descending into this nightmare scenario are pretty real. Is there any kind from your perch on the committee that you serve on, is there any kind of military response that could be effective, if they were to carry out the threat . There the a lot of military response to be effective. But it would be catastrophic. We would win, at the end of the day, there will be millions of North Koreans dead, many hundreds of thousands potentially viral and military personnel would be dead. We could potentially draw into conflict china. They clearly stated they would not allow a korean conflict to occur under their watch. When you ha ter administration say there are some options we can carry out that are less catastrophic . Sure. What are they talking about . Do i not believe there is such a less than, than total catastrophe. If you look at it right now, even more than 5,000 pieces they have embedded into the north korean country sooifd, just those artillery pieces can hit seoul, korea, and kill millions of people before we are able to hit one Cruise Missile to hit, you know, one of those artillery pieces. So there really is no good option. Theres options, to say there are good options is a stretch. We have the option of not breathing oxygen, i dont believe when it comes to this. When the president earlier this week said he was happy chain was on board. He felt they were brought on board in all of this. Are you confident about that the i want . No, im not, im not confident with chinas compliance with the sanctions regime. They need to continue to go further with that, including freezing the assets of a lot of the money laundered for north korea officials and the officials for the icbms. Why is the president praising the chinese . He has been so tough on them, hes been off the on them in the campaign and as president and this week he pronounced them on board. The only consistent thing about the president is his inconsistency, im not going to try to physical out exactly where hes going and why hes doing it. I can tell from you talking to other members of the congress and other people within this world, we dont believe that carolina is acting appropriately and has not been enforcing the full sanctions on north korea. If they did, we think there would be a better reaction out of the north korea regime. I want you to stand by. When we come back, we will talk about facebook and the announcement they made and the president announced the cooperation facebook will have with congress that turns over these ads. He calls it all a hoax as you saw. Is he leading the countries vulnerable to more of moscows interference next year when we come back. You dont let anything lkeep you sidelined. Come on thats why you drink ensure. About facebook and the come back. E strength and energy, to get back to doing what you love. Ensure, always be you. You myour joints. Thing for your heart. Or your digestion. So why wouldnt you take something for the most important part of you. Your brain. With an ingredient originally found in jellyfish, prevagen is now the number one selling brain Health Supplement in drug stores nationwide. Prevagen. The name to remember. We are back with a member of the Armed Services committee, senator geigo. Facebook is announcing they will turn over these ads that are linked to the russians placed on their website on everybodys facebook pages last year during the campaign. The president tweeted, though, this morning, that he doesnt buy any of this. The russian hoax continues with ads on facebook. What about the bias Media Coverage in favor of the Dishonest Media and coverage in favor of rooked hillary . I think they know there was interference, they were communicating, whether they collaborated, thats a different story. But the president should actually be looking out for the country. T