and in a few states, they were successful. however, official saying in no case where the targeted network systems involved in the tallying of votes. again, dhs notifying 21 states of hacking before the election in 2016. we are going to continue to follow the story and get reaction and fallout. of course, as the special counsel, robert mueller continues to investigate any connection between the trump campaign, the trump team, any trump associates, and russia in trying to interfere with the 2016 election. i am bret baier reporting tonight from dallas. this is hour number two of our weeklong expanded special report. arizona senator john mccain living up to his maverick reputation again tonight. he says he will not support the latest effort by his republican colleagues to get rid of obamacare. it could be the fatal blow to the measure, as you look at the votes. so now what? chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is live on capitol hill tonight. bret, good evening. senator john mccain dealing a devastating blow to republican health care efforts, he cannot in good conscious support the graham-cassidy bill. mccain saying this afternoon, i take no pleasure in announcing my opposition. far from it. the bill s authors are my dear friends and i think the world of them. they are acting consistently with their beliefs and what is best for the country. so am i. a key member of the senate republican leadership says the concept of allowing states to innovate is smart. design solutions to fit their population. this is consistent with how we think we need to approach this issue and i m hopeful we will still have a path forward. but certainly, senator mccain s announcement is not helpful to that end. chuck schumer said, john mccain shows the same courage in congress when he was a naval aviator. i ve assured senator mccain that as soon as repeal is off the table, we democrats are intent on resuming the bipartisan process. with mccain and kentucky s hard no on graham-cassidy, the senate will be split 50/50, meeting republic and leadership cannot afford to lose another republik and senator to pass the bill. there is a lot of attention on maine senator susan collins who voted no on july on the so-called skinny repeal of obamacare. collins sent today she s leaning against supporting graham-cassidy and says she s trying to do what she believes is the right thing for the people of maine. today, there was an effort to pressure her into supporting this bill. we are encouraging today senator susan collins to join us in this effort to give the people of maine, to give the government of maine, the resources and the flexibility to be able to craft solutions that will improve the lives and improve the health of the people of maine. this felt like the same situation as it was back in july. with republican sources saying they are getting close to 50 senators supporting the bill. the difference this time, those close to leadership hope, was that mccain opossum s best friend, lindsey graham, who authored the bill. spent 25? bret: more on this with the panel print mike, thanks this is in response to kim opossum is highly personal attack on the u.s. leader. with his response to president trump s blistering speech to the united nations general assembly tuesday. all of this comes against the backdrop of north korea s ambitious nuclear weapons program and new defiance and aggression from iran. we have fox team coverage. john huddy is in jerusalem with the latest video evidence that iran is not backing down with the u.s. we start off with senior foreign affairs correspondent greg palkot in seoul, south korea. hello, greg. is early saturday morning here in seoul. the folks in this region are hoping for some kind of a break after a very noisy and potentially dangerous week. pyongyang residents taking in their leader s latest diatribe against president trump, following the president s u.n. message challenging north korea, kim jong un called president trump mentally deranged and a dotard, or a mentally challenged old man. pay dearly for his speech totally destroying the dprk. according to his foreign minister, that could mean an h bomb blast over the pacific ocean. president trump responded via twitter. kim jong un of north korea, who was obviously a mad man who doesn t mind starting or killing his people, will be tested like never before. north korean nuclear muscle flexing got the attention of japan too. if they decided to conduct a hydrogen bomb test with an icbm in the pacific, we cannot deny the possibility it might fly over the country. these kinds of actions cannot be tolerated. along with the treasury department measures to target the funding of north korea s missile and nuclear programs, president trump noted yesterday, china s apparent willingness to get its banks in line. beijing today wasn t so sure. as far as i know, what you mentioned is not consistent with the facts. in principle, china has always implemented the security council s resolutions. cutting the cash flow to the north and its weapons development is key to 28-year-old kim jong un, who who defected to north korea a few years ago on a business trip via the south korean embassy in beijing. he claims to have worked in the government s trade and currency offices. he fled, he says, because he grew disillusioned with kim jong un and had it this morning about the young leader. may be, he s very dangerous. very dangerous. why? he s smarter and stronger than you think. he wants to live long. yeah. all the power and all the authority. kim jong un s foreign minister is not expected to speak before the u.n. general assembly on saturday. expect more fireworks. hopefully for this region, only of the verbal kind. bret? bret: greg palkot liber early saturday morning in seoul. thanks. iran is warning president trump in breaking the west s nuclear deal with iran. the islamic republic decided it would be a good idea to show off any weapon that could inflame the middle east in a major war. correspondent john huddy reports from our correspondence room. named after the iranian city known as the city of blood during the iran-iraq war. the weapon can carry multiple warheads and has a range of 2102 it was paraded in tehran by iranian president house on we shall boost our defensive and military power to the extent deemed necessary. we will not seek permission from anyone to defend our country and our land. a defiant tone after the united united nations general assembly, accusing iran of building dangerous missiles and using oil profits to support hezbollah and other terrorist, a speech rouhani described as ignorant and hateful. rouhani warned president trump about walking away from the 2015 nuclear deal. rex tillerson said thursday that iran is complying with the agreement, but saying the u.s. has significant issues with it. president trump called the deal in embarrassment during the u.n. speech tuesday, and shared by israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu who in his own u.n. address warned about iran s conquest throughout the middle east and using ballistic missiles to threaten the entire world. iran s curtain of tyranny over lebanon and elsewhere, and it pledges to extinguish the light of israel. i have a simple message for ayatollah khomeini. the light of israel will never be extinguished. israeli leaders including by mr. netanyahu have warned about iran s increasing foothold in syria and iran s support of hezbollah both in syria and lebanon. there have been reports that israel launched an air strike and the pond and has the law weapons depot, this time on the outskirts of the damascus airport early friday morning. the idf would not comment on that, but if true, it certainly would be the first time. to be 25? bret: john huddy live in our newsroom. we could be seeing changes soon to president trump s travel ban. kevin corke, who was in new jersey tonight, with the latest on that information. good evening, kevin. good evening, bret. the president and the administration replaced its current travel ban with a new one that will have more targeted restrictions. it will also vary by country. that s the biggest change we learned today. this will happen before sunday s deadline. but when it does happen, we expect a-9 countries to be impacted by the new restrictions, by the administration. let me share some of the guidelines we have learned here today after a conversation with administration officials. the full list of countries affected will be announced after the administration has rolled out its newest restrictions. by the way, they have already been notified. some of the country is affected include cambodia, at trio, guinea, and sierra leone. the tailored relevant circumstances. each country will face recommended sanctions. these are the countries that are currently on the list of those that are travel restricted. iran, libya, somalia, sudan, syria, and yemen, a list expected to grow. but the restrictions, again, will be handed out on a case-by-case basis. the ban expires sunday, bret. final decision will the white house will announce a list of countries been vice president mike pence calling the move the right approach to preserve the security of the american people. we have to continue and we will continue to make sure anybody coming into the united states of america does not represent a threat to our communities and family. now, the latest approach isn t likely to eliminate the supreme court battle over the constitutionality of the president s ban, but the aclu is weighing in tonight. let me share part of a statement that we have just received from the organization. saying this in a statement, the devil is in the details, and we are watching with great skepticism. to make good to ban muslims from the united states. these are just recommendations, which means the president can make changes before he signs the new order. one way or the other, we will know by sunday, and this will not have, like the previous ban, a time limitation. bret? bret: kevin corke live in somerset, new jersey, where the president will be. the dow lost 10 today, the s&p 500 was up 4 points. for the week, the dowel grew a point of a percentage point. the s&p 500 was of a fraction. the nasdaq lost a third. survivors are still being pulled from the rubble in mexico city as an around-the-clock rescue operations there continue into the fourth day following tuesday s 7.1 magnitude earthquake. city government says 60 people in all have been rescued since the quake hit. the official death toll tonight stands at 286. with more than half of those in the capital. things may be getting even worse in puerto rico. the national weather service is warning that a dam is failing in the northwestern part of that island and could cause flash flooding downstream. buses are evacuating people as quickly as they can at this hour. the rain is also not letting up. an additional 6 inches is expected to fall through saturday. in meantime, in texas, used in landfills are extending their hours in an effort to help with the cleanup with damage caused by hurricane harvey in this state. the mayor sylvester turner of houston announced today that landfills will be open 24 hours a day and garbage trucks expand their pickups to help clear flood related trash. president trump is on his way to alabama right now, so why is the antiestablishment president campaigning for an establishmen establishment, so-called candidate. looking life there in huntsville. we will talk about bret: president trump will appear as soon in a rally for alabama senator luther strange. the senator is in a tough as nails primary runoff down there with a republican who says he represents the trump base much more than strange does. correspondent peter doocy is in huntsville, alabama, tonight. the swamp can t win here if sarah palin things luther strange wins. she came to alabama to rally for his challenger judge roy moore, because she thinks she thinks moore is most aligned with the platform that made trump popular. the president needs support to keep the promise is that elected him. so we are sending trump someone who has our backs, not mitch mcconnell s. elise two former trump white house advisors agree with palin, the president is picking the wrong side in this place. steve bannon is picking roy moore, and so is sebastian gorka. when judge moore wins, it will given an opportunity to say, hey, guys, let trump be trump. last night, in a lincoln-douglas style debate, strains reminded who the president is endorsing. immigration is a critical issue. who the president thinks it s judge roy moore, who became a hero to many conservatives when he was removed as chief justice of the state supreme court for not removing a statue of the ten commandments, dismissed the importance of the president s support. i can t tell you what the president thinks. i can t tell you every move he makes, when he goes to the bathroom, when he doesn t. like my opponent. the challenger s moore level accusations against strange that he gave former governor robert bentley, who designed, resigned or inappropriate hoping to fill jeff sessions empty seat. he ll do anything to get his job. and that is called lack of character. sir? thank you. didn t hear anything about the issues or any solutions or anything he s going to do to help the president. strange denies any wrongdoing, and says if he loses this runoff, his replacement might not be a reliable republican ally. if my opponent wins, there will be in another no vote for everything. what the president needs is another problem solver. his opponent roy moore got an almost endorsement from hud secretary ben carson. carson said he s happy that moore is running for the senate because he reflects the state s judeo-christian values that were so important in the country s founding. but that was a break from his boss president trump who wants strange to win and will take the stage for another two hours or so but there s already several thousand people waiting for him. bret? bret: peter doocy live in huntsville. peter, thank you. let s hear from sebastian gorka, former deputy assistant to the president and a supporter, as you heard, of roy moore. he s in washington tonight. we should point out that we invited the strange campaign to participate in this segment. they did not accept this offer. dr. gorka, thank you for being here. it s my pleasure, bret. bret: i want to ask you about this breaking news, the department of homeland security notifying 21 states, russian hackers attempted to breach their systems before the 2016 elections. just wondering on your thoughts on that, why it almost take a year to tell us those things? i don t have inside knowledge on why it took so long for the dhs to make that decision. all kinds of forensics computing matters that have to be run to ground. my reaction is it s very good that this information is out there. it shouldn t surprise anybody. the idea that russia trying to undermine democratic elections is a new thing. somebody should crack open a history book. they ve been doing that since 1917, since the soviet union has been formed. it s not news, but it s great to have this as a wake-up call for us to understand just how much of a antistatist let me put in his regime are even compromise had to deal with the vote tallies. but the president says this is a hoax, the russian interference. looked, there are two issues here. what my former colleague kelly and called the russian concussion and the delusion of the confusion. the president told me in the oval office they will not find any connection to me because there isn t any. that s just hyperbole. that s clinton possessed, the left-wing media unable to take the fact that they lost the collection, the new york times thought hillary was issuing 92% on the day of the election. decades and decades and decades of let s separate the political fluff, this hysteria from true intelligence work, which is what the dhs is talking about today. bret: i appreciate you taking that question. the race down in alabama. president trump is endorsing luther strange. you have always supported president trump. why are you not supporting him here? i m supporting his agenda. this is not about who the president has endorsed with great pressure from mitch mcconnell. let s be accurate about what happened tonight. i was told steve law, who runs mitch mcconnell s pack for this race, when he heard i was coming on, he got a yellow belly and just random. that tells you the establishment is afraid of the president s agenda winning in alabama on tuesday. bret: yes, dr. gorka. what i m saying is you are separating the president from the president s agenda. how was that the same sentence? isn t the president in charge of his agenda? you have to read my resignation letter to the president. you can read it at breitbart.com. we left the room, steve and myself, because people who had nothing to do with the make america great again agenda were outnumbering us, their voices were becoming louder. that is a temporary state of affairs. the president has gone with the forces of the establishment on this one can the din. guess what happens? when judge moore wins on tuesday, it will strengthen the president because now he will be able to go to the establishment g.o.p., to the swamp dwellers, and say, hey, guys, we are back on my agenda. this wasn t worth it. the president is going to stay. he s going to return to their make america great again agenda. we have to help him and we are going to do it from the outside by endorsing people like judge moore. bret: i only have a few seconds here, but isn t it kind of ridiculous when you think about it that the republicans are spending some $20 million on a primary where likely the senators will vote the same way? well, i don t think he would. it s a real embarrassment that mitch mcconnell has spent $9 million on a professional lobbyist who was put in place as a senator by a governor who then had to be removed from office. what does that tell you? we could ve spent those $9 million on lots of really important things for americans. yeah, it s a sad indictment of the g.o.p. swamp dwellers. bret: dr. gorka, thank you so much for your time. we appreciate it. thanks, bret. bret: up next, more details on the election hack from the dhs announcement and the panel coming bret: a fox news alert not approving new details on the story we brought you to the top of the hour. a notification from the homeland security secretary to almost two dozen states about attempts to hack into their election systems prior to the election in 2016. getting your information, want to keep you updated. chief white house correspondent catherine herridge. what do we know about these attacks? well, bret, this quantifies some testimony we heard earlier from the senate intelligence committee as part of their russian investigation. senior homeland security official testified that nearly half of states were affected, mostly scanning of their system, but none of the vote tallies were changed. early september, we determine internet collected election related networks in 21 states were potentially targeted by russian government cyber actors. important to note that none of these systems were involved in vote tallying. a number of these systems were successfully exploited. they made it through the door. we don t have all 21 states, but we have a handful based on media reports and our own reporting here at fox news, they include alabama, arizona, colorado, connecticut, iowa, maryland, minnesota, iowa, virginia, washington state, as well as wisconsin. what s key here is investigators have told fox news they believe the russians were looking specifically at the voter registration databases and their concern is that in the future they might try and corrupt the databases so that if you go to vote, your name will not match what s already in the system. this will not prevent you from voting, but it could be a deterrent or at least slow down the process, bret. bret: to be clear, what was said in the sound bite, there was no vote tally affected what they saw. some of the networks were compromised. i guess the question is what took almost a year to live by those states, what s the reaction, response on the hill? since the story was broken by the associated press about 40 minutes ago, we have a response from a senior democrat on this senate intelligence committee, mark warner of virginia, it s unsubtle it took almost a year after the election to notify states that their election systems were targeted. dhs, homeland security needs to notify states and localities in real time when their systems are targeted and the elephant in the room, if you all, is the 2018 election in what s intimated to be an aggressive cyber response in russia and other countries, bret. bret: catherine, thank you. americans have been fighting and dying in afghanistan since shortly after the 9/11 attacks. now they are finally receiving a bit of gratitude from the afghan government, specifically. correspondent lauren green shows us tonight. my husband i truly feel my heart is in afghanistan. for 16 years, americans have fought and died in afghanistan, waging a campaign to oust terror groups like isis and al qaeda. for the first time, the afghan government officially thank them for their sacrifice. afghan president greeted u.s. veterans and gold star families and thank them at a private event at new york city. all presidents have either served afghanistan or lost a loved one in the fight. i m grateful on behalf of grateful people, grateful state, grateful commander-in-chief, a grateful president, i want to say thank you. americans presence in afghanistan makes it the longest war campaign in our history. more than 2200 soldiers have died and more than 20,000 wounded. captain austen bond in 2011 led infantry through fears conflict this is something the vietnam generation was never able to experience. and to see that our sacrifices made something in afghanistan, they continue to mean something. jane ward and now works with the afghan embassy here in the states. she believes is a nice way to honor her husband, army specialist christopher horton, and the people he died trying to save. my husband a boss of his blood is in the soil. he gave his life there, for me, to see afghanistan succeed means my husband s life was worth it. 1100 american soldiers are still in afghanistan working alongside and training afghan soldiers. president trump announced an additional 3,000 will be sent to one now grateful country. bret? bret: lauren green in new york. lauren, thanks. time now for our segment, whatever happened to. tonight, you may not number the name, but if you saw it, you probably remember the interview. congressman michael grimm went from the house of representatives to the big house, but now he s back. here s senior correspondent rick leventhal. i pray to you every day because that means the world to me. michael grimm was arriving star in the republican party. the only elected republican in congress representing a segment part of new york city from 2011 until 2015. what a federal investigation into a restaurant he once owned lead to charges of fraud and tax evasion. and then this happened. people say, what is your biggest regrets, it s probably, number one, what is in the top three, that interview. grimm said the reporter and local network i walked in. i say, mom, i know. no, you don t know. do you know who you look like what s mike i say, no, mom, who do i look like? you look like your father. well, i m my father s son. your father is a roofer. he can get away with that. you can. grimm pled guilty to a tax fraud, resigned from service, congress, and served seven months in a minimum security prison camp. i wouldn t wish on my enemies. grimm says his case was politically motivated and his crime deserve no time. in the entire history of new york city the entire history! there have been tens and thousands of civil clients at the department of labor for restaurant owners, but the exact same conduct. i m the first to be criminally charged. now michael grimm says he s ready to work for the people again. should i run? if you do, you win. you ve got my vote, but he. i don t run unless i know i can win. when i go out and shake these hands, people hug me, they tell me, you have no idea how many people are behind me, i just know it. i feel it in my heart. the man who took grimm s seat in congress, dan donovan, says he s not going to step out of the way. he will have a fight on his hands in the republican primary next june. bret? bret: rick, thanks. if you have a story you d like to see an update on, whatever happened to, let me know @bretbaier on twitter, or facebook at bretbaiersr. is the obamacare repeal there s nothing more important than your health. so if you re on medicare or will be soon, you may want more than parts a and b here s why. medicare only covers about 80% of your part b medical expenses. the rest is up to you. you might want to consider an aarp medicare supplement insurance plan, insured by unitedhealthcare insurance company. like any medicare supplement insurance plan, these help pick up some of what medicare doesn t pay. and, these plans let you choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. you could stay with the doctor or specialist you trust. or go with someone new. you re not stuck in a network. because there aren t any. so don t wait. call now to request your free decision guide and find the aarp medicare supplement plan that works for you. there s a range to choose from, depending on your needs and your budget. rates are competitive. and they re the only plans of their kind endorsed by aarp. like any of these types of plans, they let you apply whenever you want. there s no enrollment window. no waiting to apply. so call now. remember, medicare supplement plans help cover some of what medicare doesn t pay. you ll be able to choose any doctor or hospital that accepts medicare patients. whether you re on medicare now or turning 65 soon, it s a good time to get your ducks in a row. duck: quack! call to request your free decision guide now. because the time to think about tomorrow is today. senator mccain, but especially we are encouraging senators susan collins to join us in this effort. the vice president and the president both recognize that one size does not fit all. if people start making special deals and certain states get special treatment at the expense of my estate, um, i m going to be very unamused. i was on the floor of the senate when john mccain walked up and said thumbs down. thumbs down. talk about frustration. spring went well, he said thumbs down again. senator john mccain saying he can t vote for the graham-cassidy bill, and that essentially killing it. tonight, although some of the supporters and coauthors say there is still a chance, lindsey graham saying my friendship with john mccain is not based on how he votes, but respect for how he lived his life and if the person he is. i respectfully disagree with his position, not to proceed forward with graham-cassidy. obamacare is collapsing in arizona, south carolina, and across the nation. i feel an obligation to fix this disaster and intend to push forward for a state centric health care versus washington knows best health care and we press on. but they pressed on against the odds. take a look at the votes opposed, senator mccain, senator rand paul, and the concerned senator susan collins, and senator murkowski. but seeing closer to no then yes, although it s not official great let s bring in our panel from washington. kimberley strassel, and a.b. stoddard, associate of kimberly, your thoughts? republicans are disappointed in mccain and i think they have a right to be. the stated reasons he gave why he is saying no, they again do not hold water. he said he didn t want it because he didn t have a cbo score. but the reality is the cbo score here is irrelevant because you don t know what the states are going to do with the money they are block printing. he said that he wished there was more of a bipartisan process, but the reality is that democrats are never going to agree to any bill other than an insurance bailout. and truly, if he didn t care about by cartman ship, he would be sending these monies back to both democratic and republican states that can choose to use of the way they wanted to. ab, is it fair to say that he twice now kept obamacare alive? well, yes. i mean look. anything as the bill author said could happen over the weekend. they could change some things, tweak it in a way to pick up some other support. maybe they can bring lisa murkowski or susan collins around. and maybe it won t be john mccain who killed the bill. but i happen to agree with john mccain that anything that s going to last is going to have to be bipartisan. republicans railed against this bill and so did i on the show with you, bret, for so many years we went including john mccain, we should point out. a bipartisan bill jam through without consensus for lasting change. he was right when he said that anything they jam through by the way, doesn t look like it can even pass the house right now even if it had, if it does squeak through next week, it s just going to be something that continues to create uncertainty and will phase change in the next power shift in congress. i think he s right about that. yeah, there are others that think that john mccain is taking one for the team, they don t want to vote for this, they know it can die in the house. a cbo score will surface. when they have, in the past, as irrelevant people think the cbo is, let s create a backlash is against these bills for the 17% approval rating. i think of further eroding republicans credibility with voters on this issue. they need to figure out something that stabilizes the marketplace, while the insurance companies are making their decisions were rates for 18 and in the future. jamming through this bill is going to come back to haunt them. bret: the only bipartisan thing happening up there on health care, byron, was the alexander-murray effort, lamar alexander, alexander murray, that was money to shore up insurance companies to prop up obamacare, wasn t it? precisely what a lot of republicans don t want to do. but i think it s time for everyone to just admit there is a significant number of republicans who just don t want to repeal obamacare. back when the house was voting on this, a number of members told me that they kept saying that there is 20-40 people here, republicans, who don t want to do this. they don t want to repeal obamacare. when the vote happen, they lost 20 republicans. 20 voted against it, they passed it right at the number at 217. those 20 house republicans are equivalent to 4-5 senate republicans, and they do not have that margin. they can t lose three or more. i think basically this is happening because republicans don t want to do it. bret: kim, what does this say or does it foreshadow anything about the upcoming tax reform vote and battle that we will see in coming weeks? look, what do we have again? we have a republican caucus that made a promise, ran on it for 7-8 years, and once again is failing to fulfill it. that s going to depress a lot of people out there as they head into this now even more hurt to do tax reform. believe it or not, with all the differences in health care, tax reform is harder when you add in all the provisions of all the different lobbyists. this is not a good foreshadowing. one other thing, by the way. people talk about a bipartisan health care bill. the reality is you can never get that because people s views are so divergent on this. you have total free marketers on one side and bernie sanders, medicare for all on the other. the one area there s always been bipartisanship on until recently is the idea sending money back to the states and letting them craft their own solutions, which is why it s such a pity that this one bill is not moving forward. bret: all right. next up, the fight electing round for the president s travel ban. we ve got winners and losers, plus the breaking news about the election hacking all ne what should i watch? show me sports. it s so fluffy! look at that fluffy unicorn! he s so fluffy i m gonna die! your voice is awesome. the x1 voice remote. xfinity. the future of awesome. this is something that we are looking at. how to protect the american people better. how to ensure that we know who these people are who are moving, so part of the strategy must be to interdict these networks, interdict them from how they use information to communicate but how they move physically as well. bret: national acute comic security advisor talking about the travel ban, the original exit in order back in march. other countries may be added to that as it continues to wind its way all the way up to the u.s. supreme court after we are back with the panel. byron? the whole point of the 90 day travel ban was to give the bureaucracy time to come up with new standards to deal with people coming in the united states from terrible like the countries, and they ve been doing just that. they ve come up with these standards, talked to every single country in the world about them, and countries that live up to the new standards will be fine. those who can t or won t we ll have some restrictions on people who came here. basically what has happened is the administration has done what they said they were going to do when they did the initial travel ban. bret: a.b.? these issues are really important to trump s base and he ll talk about it in alabama. all the countries have seen the legal hurdles, when it was perceived as a religious test, it was unconstitutional pure they will be fine with the country specific restrictions and put it behind us. he will claim a policy when back when it s all said and done. bret: kim, i want to turn to the hacking story and the department of homeland security putting out this statement, the 21 states alerted tonight, or today, that they had received hacking from russian agents prior to the 2016 election. the news was that it happened, but it essentially was the same that we heard from congressional testimony that they may have gotten into a few but no vote tallies were ever changed. we ve known a long time they did in fact to attempt to break into systems and we were also told very definitively that they didn t manage to. the new news here was the 21 states, the names of those states, or some of them, who have chosen to divulge they got a phone call. you are going to hear some complaining about why they took so long. it s probably a wise decision given all the upset about the rush of meddling in the election, probably put them to pass before the names are out of there. bret: obviously, bob muller s investigation continue continues. winners first, then losers. my winner of the week is betsy devos who formally revoked that title ix guidance about rate accusations rape accusations at colleges. this is the administration working with universities to find justice instead of against them during my losers of the week are students at howard university who protested and held up james comey s former fbi jane comey s ability to speak at a common station there. everyone deserves to be able to have a voice on campus. this is, once again, wrong. bret: a.b., winners and losers? my winner is shannon green, new show, you go, girl. my loser is valerie plain tweeted out an article, america s jews are driving wars. however, she got a headline and tweeted it in. bret: on rosh hashanah, i think. byron, winners and losers? the winner is nikki haley who had a very good week at the general assembly. got a lot of good notices, probably rose in the estimation for the president. the loser is lawrence o donnell, the msnbc anchor who has taught us once again that if you are in a television studio with a camera and a microphone, people can see and hear what you do and you shouldn t throw a tantrum. bret: that is true. the mics are always hot. panel, thank you very much. i just want to say that the winner of the week is the special report staff. we did two hours, 5:00-7:00, monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday. i m in dallas today. the staff ended a fantastic job. when we come back, next panel, this week s notable potables. bret: with ten hours of special report this week, there were, no doubt, plenty of chances to get plenty of news. here are this week s notable quotables. this will be the largest audience to witness the emmys period. i think people who are suggesting otherwise don t fully understand this bill. i don t understand because i m a talk show, right? when somebody is working 100 hours a week, they are going to make mistakes. it is very disturbing. we are watching kim jong un advance his technology. rocket man is on a suicide mission. that is a pregnant trump original. talking about the fourth of july, pennsylvania avenue, having a great parade to show our military strength. i can t tell you what he thinks, every move he makes. having a relationship with him is so important if we want to get anything done. looking for anybody who may have survive so far. people have been so far resilient. the border between u.s. and mexico the list of laws violated by the president s administration in order to build his campaign wall is almost as long. in the united states, anybody can sue, but the united states of america has a border. do you want to hear and answer, or do you just want to chant? just stop it now. just stop it now. what s up with aliens? i want to know. classified information. bret: one week right there. thanks for inviting us into your home tonight. we are going to have live coverage of that rally down in alabama here on the fox news channel. that is it for this week s special report, fair, balanced, and unafraid from dallas tonight. as we mentioned it earlier, it has been a week of 2-hour it shows starting monday. our friends at the five are back at their original spot. the story hosted by martha maccallum will be atanant forget to watch my show! i forgot to plug it. watch it, it s great. welcome to this special edition of hannity, the the i am jeanine pirro. a speaking engagement just wrapped up at the rally for luther strange in huntsville, alabama. president trump explained why he is supporting strange in the primary run on tuesday. president trump touched on a number of big issues including putting america first. take a look. i will always defend america s interests above all else. i m here for you. i am not here f
support. i think it s actually much better than the previous shot which was very sadly let down. again, we ve been hearing about repeal and replace for seven years. i thought i would go to the oval office, sit down at my desk, there d be a health care bill on my desk, to be honest. it hasn t worked out that way. i think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it but i have to tell you i think they are going to do a great job. if this happens, it will be a good thing for the country. bret: chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is live on capitol hill. good evening. aids to senate senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said he tends to bring the graham-cassidy built the floor next week. a race against the clock for votes is underway. i don t have any big announcement. that i can share with you. there is a lot of attention on alaska republican senator lisa murkowski. the bills lead sponsor says the time to attract democrats is over. there is zero possibility in a bipartisan manner to replace obamacare. i m not interested in continuing it. murkowski, john mccain, susan collins with the three republican senators who defeated health care form in july. within end of the month deadline to do this, pressure is building on undecided republicans. president trump is pressing them for a different outcome tweeting i hope republican senators will vote for graham-cassidy and fulfill their promise to repeal and replace obamacare. money directed states. because there are many concerns i have about the graham-cassidy proposal. they include the fact that they make fundamental changes in the medicaid program for the first time in more than 50 years. stick with the president is also pressuring the kentucky senator who says he has a no . rand paul is a friend of my but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing health care. graham-cassidy bill is great. because this is not repealed. it s not what we promise. this is not the last chance. we ll have more opportunities. then there is the late-night attack from hollywood. your child with a pre-existing condition will get the care he needs if and only if his father is jimmy kimmel. otherwise you might be screwed. if he understands the bill, he s wrong. it will increase coverage and protect those with pre-existing conditions, particularly those states that don t have the benefit of medicaid expansion. talks in the senate between lamar alexander and patty murray broke down. they were trying to come up with a way to fix obamacare by the end of the month but alexander said they couldn t find consensus. it s unfortunate. we had a chance to do something important, historic, bipartisan. now we are moving toward another partisan approach. no cbo score, no hearings. the breakdown of the talks means the only option to address health insurance market issue short term will be graham-cassidy, trying to make it a binary choice between obamacare and a new plane. plan. bret: do you think republicans will repeal obamacare? let me know on twitter @bretbaier. use the hashtag #specialreport or on facebook at facebook.com/bretbaiersr. hurricane maria dropped to a category 2 storm but the damage has already been done in the caribbean, puerto rico is especially hard hit with virtually no electricity on the islands. steve harrigan is live in san juan. good evening. good evening, and grim and stunning situation here when you consider this island of 3.5 million people, a u.s. territory, it s virtually entirely without electricity. they have put in a curfew starting from right now until 6:00 a.m. that curfew is scheduled to go through saturday. there have been no reports of looting but certainly a potentially combustible situation where you have the entire island without power, no visible sign of police or guards on some people and very desperate situations with damaged houses and short on food and water. the situation here has develope developed. bret: that sometimes happens in the middle of storms. steve harrigan, the satellite dropping. we will head back to steve if we get him back. another natural disaster. rescue efforts continue among the ruins in central mexico. 225 people confirmed dead so fa far. yesterday 7.1 magnitude earthquake. she s correspondent jonathan hunt is in mexico city. bret, we are standing at one of the staging post for the hundreds of official rescue workers and the hundreds of civilian volunteers who are involved in what is a desperate operation now to find anybody who may have survived beneath the rubble of the 40 or so buildings that collapsed here in mexico city. they have gathered here. the bikes you see may look incongruous but they are often the quickest way to fury workers in and out of the rescue site. about half a mile in front of me is this school which collapsed. that s the focus of so many efforts here in mexico city right now. 30 children at least confirmed dead, and there could be up to another 30 underneath the rubble of the school. there is the hope, however faint it may be, that a couple of those children may have survived. that s why they are digging so desperately, so urgently to see if they can pull any of those children alive from the rubble. it s a similar scene around mexico city. we stopped at one building today on our way here to the school. it was a five-story apartment building. it s now pancake down into what would be about two stories. some 40 apartments in the building. a desperate search for survivors in one of the southern suburbs. in downtown mexico city, similar scenes playing out. president pena nieto says this remains at the moment a rescue operation and will remain so until the authorities are absolutely certain there is no possibility that anybody else could be alive. until that time, they will keep digging in the hopes they may pull out more survivors. the death toll officially as of tonight stands at 223. it seems inevitable that will go higher. president trump spoke with president pena nieto by telephone today. he extended condolences of the united states and offered whatever assistance the u.s. can give. there are american teams on the ground here, the los angeles county fire department has sent its urban search and rescue team. they are doing what they can to help the mexican people recover from what s obviously devastating 7.1 earthquake. bret: jonathan hunt live in mexico city. thank you. amazing to see the rescuers holding up their hands and tell everyone to be quiet as they listen for children s voices under that crushed school. we will follow the story. president trump says he s made up his mind about what to do about the iran nuclear deal. he s not telling. the tease comes as iran s president hits back at president trump s tough talk yesterday. john roberts is in new york. good evening. president trump has often been accused of having a thin skin but he clearly got under the skin of iran s president hassan rouhani with a scathing indictment of the iran s government yesterday and this threat to withdraw from the obama-era iran nuclear deal. president trump would not say what he will do but did say he has made a decision on whether to scrap the so-called jcpoa, the iran nuclear deal. i will let you know. as a candidate, president trump promised he would cancel the iran deal but his administration has recertified it twice. faces another 90 day renewal in october. in his speech to the united nations general assembly yesterday, the president ripped the agreement and seemed to suggest changes could be forthcoming. frankly that deal is an embarrassment to the united states, and i don t think you ve heard the last of it. believe me. iran s president hassan rouhani addressed the united nations today, insisting iran is living up to its side of the agreement, criticizing president trump as a neophyte on foreign policy. translator: it will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics. the world will have lost a great opportunity. rouhani took the opportunity to respond to president trump s harsh assessment of iran as a corrupt dictatorship. ignorant, absurd, hateful rhetoric filled with ridiculous baseless allegations. bulgaria s president, a fan of president trump s election but who was also close to russia, urged iran. joint conference of plan. members of the president s administration, the secretary of state and national security advisor, are also urging the president not to scrap the agreement. an administration source tells fox news that doesn t mean the president can t take other actions against neuron such as tough new sanctions for its support of terrorism and other destabilizing activities. president trump also kept up the push for middle east peace, meeting with the palestinian president and jordan s king abdullah as he did with israel s prime minister yesterday. the president said he is trying hard to attain the self are unattainable. we had an important juncture. there is a small period of time and we are going to see we can do. that can be no promises obviously. so many people have talked about it and it s never happened. we are fighting very hard. president trump got some back up to the policies he articulated in the speech to the united nations general assembly yesterday from u.k. prime minister theresa may who, in her speech, urged the united nations to banded together to reign in north korea s nuclear program and in a shocker, threaten to withhold 30% of the u.k. s contribution to the u.n. unless the world body undertakes a much-needed reform. they want john roberts live in new york. south korean leaders are calling president trump s threat to destroy north korea of ferment concrete stance for peace and safety. that threat coming of north korea attacks. not everyone feels the same way. senior foreign affairs correspondent greg palkot reports from seoul. u.s. troops continue exercises in south korea. the region and the world are reeling from president trump s comments on tuesday that the u.s. would totally destroy north korea if it was forced to defend itself or its allies from kim jong un s nuclear weapons and missiles. allies were positive, south korea said it was a side of america s strong resolve. translator: i highly appreciated the position that all options are on the table. kim jong un s other neighbors were not so pleased. security council resolutions calling all parties to stay committed to peacefully resolving the korean peninsula issue through a political and diplomatic approach. we don t doubt the united states has the capacity to do something very destructive, but i paid attention to another part of the president s speech when he said he respects sovereignty and equality in international relations. asking if service members would be called on, the defense secretary weighed in. we continue to press on the diplomatic level, and that includes economic sanctions of course. at this time, we must also recognize the somber reality that military options must be available. in order to protect our allies and ourselves. some think north korea will be kept in mind by the president s. others think it will reject it or just be confused. may believe mr. trump is unpredictable. he s not ready to go to war or use force. you think they think he could be bluffing? caught in the middle are the residence. he has a good idea i think. you think he has a good idea? no. it will destroy everyone here in seoul and in korea probably. we just got our first response from north korea. it s not pretty. coming from the south korean news agency, they are quoting north korea s foreign minister who has arrived in new york for the u.n. sessions. he says, this is a quote the threat of president trump is the sound of a dog barking. the foreign minister is scheduled to speak on friday before the u.n. expect more of that. game on. bret. bret: always interesting responses. greg palkot in seoul. thanks. the president and his people say the u.s. has many military options to deal with north korea but shooting down a missile really one of them? national security correspondent jennifer griffin is that the pentagon. good evening. it s like shooting a bullet with another bullet. many question if they can. haven t shot them down because we can t shoot them down. especially the missiles that are going over japan or they are too high for our interceptors. and they would have to be aimed pretty much directly at the defensive systems in order for us to have a chance of engaging them. north korea fired a missile last week that flew 480 miles above japan but the missile interceptor did not reach that high. if the north korean missile were heading directly toward japan, that system may have worked in the terminal phase. but the u.s. could not have shot the missile down midflight. last week s missile flew over japan in 8 minutes. the air force general who oversees america s nukes says it s really a policy decision. there are technologies out there we could deploy. there is nothing that would do my heart anymore good then to drop a missile back on the person who launched it. ships would have to be almost up to the north korean coast, may be in north korean waters, to take a shot. this is a game of minutes. the detection, the initial detection of a launch, in terms of seconds. keeping in mind the entire flight time from north korea to the united states is well under an hour. the thaad missile defense system may give seoul a false sense of comfort. it can t protect all 25 million people. it s 48 interceptors are designed by time for a military response to an attack but could be easily overwhelmed by hundreds of north korean missiles. after president trump s speech yesterday, the pentagon expect more tests for more three or right now senior leaders tell me there are few good options to stop them. bret: jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. thank you. california s latest effort to try to stop president trump s border wall. that s next. tech: when you schedule with safelite autoglass, you get time for more life. this family wanted to keep the game going. son: hey mom, one more game? tech: with safelite, you get a text when we re on our way. you can see exactly when we ll arrive. mom: sure. bring it! tech: i m micah with safelite. mom: thanks for coming, it s right over here. tech: giving you a few more minutes for what matters most. take care! family: bye! kids singing: safelite® repair, safelite® replace. it s looking up, not down.ng fit s being in motion. boost® high protein it s intelligent nutrition with 15 grams of protein and 26 vitamins and minerals. boost® the number one high protein complete nutritional drink. bret: attorney general jeff sessions within california tonight, the state that is filing multiple lawsuits against the trump administration, including one to stop the border wall. william la jeunesse joins us live from the southern border. he spoke with the democratic state attorney general about the lawsuit as well as the issue of protecting the u.s. border. this is part of the wall, the fence. that s the whole ring. that s a lighthouse. that s the pacific ocean. california has filed multiple suits against the trump administration. the latest is to try to stop the extension of this fence going east towards arizona. the fence stretches about 700 miles. most was built without an environmental review. the president directed homeland security to replace and extend the barrier and fill some gaps. california says the feds need an environmental waiver. that is expired. they need a full impact statement which takes about five years to complete. opponents accuse the state of grandstanding. you could put the border wall up right now. the environmental rules be. the national security of the united states. california doesn t have the responsibility to protect the united states of america and the same way the federal government does. we can protect our borders. i believe we will be successful. we will not yield to those kind of political lawsuits. the attorney general was here to speak about another part of border security, drug interdiction. they helped locate about 500,00g from colombia. the bulk of the drugs come over the border. the attorney general says this is a work in progress. you want to talk about metrics. three years ago we were maybe stopping 10%. we have tripled it. that s only 30%. what does it take to get to 70, 80, 90%? resources. we have a high availability of drugs, low prices of drugs and greater purity of drugs. these three factors are bad for law enforcement. in 2005 congress gave the federal government broad authority to build the fence without environmental review. that was challenged, and the supreme court declined the case. it doesn t mean some federal judge might not hold up the construction of the wall for a period of time. bret: william la jeunesse along the southern border. thank you. health and human services secretary tom price is under fire tonight for some recent flying with a high price tag. a spokeswoman at hhs does not dispute a report in politico same price opted for more expensive chartered aircraft last week costing tens of thousands of dollars while other travel options appeared available. his predecessors have flown commercial. hhs spokeswoman says price tries to fly commercial whenever possible but that commercial airlines are not always feasible. adding prices putting a priority on traveling outside washington to meet with the american peopl people. she adds the travel department checks every possible source for travel needs. imagine losing your vehicle because you had a handful of bullets in your possession. it really happened to one man, and it s driving the push for major changes in asset forfeiture laws. doug mckelway has the story. two years ago, kentucky farmer and onetime g.o.p. statehouse candidate serrano was driving his new ford f2 50 truck to visit relatives in mexico. customs agents halted him, demanded his cell phone, asking why are you taking pictures. i wanted the opening of the bridge. i was going to take the opening of the bridge, the entrance of the bridge. that s all i wanted to do. they searched his truck and found five bullets that he forgot to remove. he is a concealed carry permit holder. he was detained but never arrested. customs seized his truck, telling his attorneys it was subject to the government civil asset forfeiture program because it was used to transport munitions of war. two years later, they still have it. i m making payments of $673 a month. the program dates back to english law that american colonists rebelled against. codified in the fourth amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. forfeiture was revived in the 1930s era prohibition and again in the 1980s war on drugs. continues on to this day. it s astonishing that civil forfeiture as a policy we have in this country. it s totally unjust. it s unfair, and i think it s unconstitutional. the police just take it and say you prove to us this is ist drug money. one of the cash seizures i had had plans for a methamphetamine laboratory. they had documented intelligence. laypeople selling cocaine, people involved in cartel activity. many contend the program s abuses outweigh the benefits. critics were outraged this summer when jeff sessions ended obama era restrictions that blocked forfeiture without a warrant for criminal charges. this month and a rare show of bipartisanship, conservative republicans join democrats to rollback sessions undoing of the obama-era reforms. asset forfeiture is a crime against the american people committed by their own government. in practice and principle, forfeiture is a violation of the fourth amendment. the senate is poised to act but many say what s needed is a supreme court test case. mr. serrano is suing customs to get the truck back in and the policy of civil forfeiture once and for all. bret: thank you. up next, why the incumbent senator from alabama is having such a tough time winning his own party s nomination. here s what some of our fox affiliates are covering. fox 43 in harrisburg. pennsylvania s credit rating was downgraded by standard & poor s. it cites the state s deficit and history of late budgets and making the decision. the downgrade comes as lawmakers argue over how to resolve a roughly $2 billion deficit. fox 7 in austin. the texas house speaker calling for the removal of a plaque at the state capital honoring the confederacy. the republicans has the text on the plaque is not accurate. it advocates teaching that the civil war is not a rebellion and that slavery was not the underlying cause. live look from new york from our affiliate fox 5. one of the stories there tonight. federal prosecutors asking the judge to sentence anthony weiner to around two years in prison for engaging in illicit text messaging with a 15-year-old girl. prosecutors filed papers urging the judge to send a message at anthony weiner s sentencing on monday. that s the live look outside the beltway from special report. we ll be right back. hey grandpa. hey, kid. really good to see you. you too. you tell grandma you were going fishing again? maybe. (vo) the best things in life keep going. that s why i got a subaru, too. introducing the all-new crosstrek. love is out there. find it in a subaru crosstrek. are upgrading their watere filter to zerowater. start with water that has a lot of dissolved solids. pour it through brita s two-stage filter. dissolved solids remain! what if we filter it over and over? oh dear. thank goodness zerowater s five-stage filter gets to all zeroes the first time. so maybe it s time to upgrade. get more out of your water. get zerowater. bret: where less than a week away from alabama s republican senate runoff. it s turning out to be a close race and more divisive than anyone anticipated. correspondent jonathan serrie shows us from alabama. the red-hot senate races bringing out the big guns. president trump and vice president pence both announcing visits to the state to stump for luther strange. i only met mitch mcconnell a few months ago but that were relationship, working relationship with me in a unique position in washington. strange, pointed to fill the seat when jeff sessions became attorney general, considered a g.o.p. establishment favorite. if strange wins, it s a feather in trump s cap but a bigger feather in mitch mcconnell s cap. spending by the senate majority leader super pac has topped $4.7 million. luther strange fights for our conservative values every day. the moore campaign is fighting back with an antiestablishment message. drain the swamp. send mcconnell a message. roy moore. here, the seat of the county which trump won with nearly 90% of the vote, people are genuinely excited about his upcoming visit to alabama. residents we spoke with say the president s endorsement in the u.s. senate race is unlikely to sway their vote. i like trump, but i am not voting for strange. i like his christian values, roy. and i think that s what this country needs. a favorite among christian conservatives, roy moore, a populist and defender of the constitution enjoys the support of mo brooks and former trump advisor steve bannon. i think people know me. they know i am not running against donald trump. i have supported things donald trump stands for. the winner of next tuesday s primary runoff is favored to win back the december general election in this solidly red state. the battle is not so much between republican and democrat as it is between the various factions of the president s supporters. bret: more on the race with the paddle. candidates for governor in virginia are sparring over the economy and the confederacy. one of the gubernatorial general elections this fall. allison barber looks at that race tonight. the two candidates running for virginia governor squared off at a televised debate. on the left, ralph northam. pediatric neurologist who once served in the army. on the right, ed gillespie, former chair of the rnc, counselor to president george w. bush and launched an unsuccessful bid for senate seat in 2014. the race is close with gillespie trailing northam. the leader of glaspie s party is not particularly popular among virginia voters. 53% say they disapprove of the job president trump is doing. 74% say the president is not a factor in their vote from governor. it s a little bit surprising. i think the polling result provides a lesson for the continuation of this campaign for the northam campaign. if he s the focus so heavily on the trump administration trying to tie ed gillespie to donald trump, it appears that s just not going to be enough to get him the governorship. in the subject of president trump came up. if i could talk about some policies. gillespie pivoted. he could say i am nancy pelosi and i could say he s donald trump and we could have that debate but it s not going to get another job created. the focused it on other topics like the economy and confederate monuments. my view is the statutes should remain and we should place them in historical context. personally i think the statues will be better placed in museums with historical context. i am leaving that up to the localities. the current given her governor of virginia is a democrat and overall voters are pretty happy with the way things are. two-thirds said they are satisfied with the direction of the state. bret: thank you. federal reserve policymakers say they will probably raise interest rates one more time this year. the revising their projection for economic growth for 2017. from 2.2% to 2.4. they are cutting their inflation prediction from 2% by the end of next year to 1.9. markets finished mixed. dow up 42. s&p 500 gained 2. nasdaq lost 5. can republicans finally repeal obamacare and what is in the bill? we will analyze the chances and the substance with the panel when we come back. when you brush or floss you may have gum problems and could be on the journey to much worse. help stop the journey it s they re experts in things you haven t heard of - researchers of technologies that one day, you will. some call them the best of the best. some call them veterans. we call them our team. if you have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis,. .isn t it time to let the real you shine through? maybe it s time for otezla (apremilast). otezla is not an injection or a cream. it s a pill that treats plaque psoriasis differently. with otezla, 75% clearer skin is achievable after just 4 months,. .with reduced redness,. .thickness, and scaliness of plaques. and the otezla prescribing information has. .no requirement for routine lab monitoring. don t use if you re allergic to otezla. otezla may cause severe diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting. tell your doctor if these occur. otezla is associated with an increased. .risk of depression. tell your doctor if you have. .a history of depression. .or suicidal thoughts,. .or if these feelings develop. some people taking otezla. .reported weight loss. your doctor should monitor your weight and may stop treatment. other side effects include upper. .respiratory tract infection and headache. tell your doctor about all the medicines you take. .and if you re pregnant or planning to be. ask your dermatologist about otezla today. otezla. show more of you. at ally, we re doing digital financial services right. but if that s not enough, we have 7500 allys looking out for one thing, you. call in the next ten minutes to save on. and if that s not enough, we ll look after your every dollar. put down the phone. and if that s not enough, we ll look after your every cent. grab your wallet. access denied. and if that s still not enough to help you save. ooo i need these! we ll just bring out the snowplow. you don t need those! we ll do anything, seriously anything, to help our customers. thanks. ally. do it right. the vast majority of republican governors are on board. they want the money. they want to get health care out of washington. i characterized the bill as shift and shaft. they like the fact that people are paying attention to hurricanes and earthquakes in daca and that they might be able to speak this buy. he said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families had no lifetime caps. the new bill does none of those things. he s wrong. it will increase coverage and protect those with pre-existing conditions. it specifically says that there is adequate and affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. bret: this is the battle going on on capitol hill now. the latest effort to repeal obamacare with this cassidy-graham bell. senate majority leader s office is saying he will bring it to the floor. here s what s in it. block grant obamacare subsidies and medicaid expansion to the states. repeal obamacare individual and employer mandates. repeal the obamacare medical device tax. strengthen the ability for states to waive obamacare regulations. protect patients with pre-existing medical conditions. that obviously was a lot of the focus of the criticism today. let s bring in the panel. stephen hayes, editor-in-chief of the weekly standard. mollie hemingway, senior editor at the federalist and charles lane, opening writer for the washington post. let s talk about the substance. what this bill does and what he doesn t do. this bill does not repeal and replace obamacare. it keeps most obamacare taxes and spending but block grants to states after 2020. the main selling point is flexibility. lindsey graham making the argument that states are going to be able to do they want, they can experiment in the manner they want. if blue states want to move toward single-payer, they can do that with their obamacare dollars. if red states want to move to more market-based reforms, they can do that. bret: the ultimate federalism. the strongest argument in favor of the bill. leave it to nancy pelosi when there are plenty of criticisms democrats could offer to mischaracterize why republicans are doing this when and how they are doing it. it has nothing to do with hurricanes and sneaking it through. it has everything to do with the fact that republicans can t do this via reconciliation after september 30. bret: the federalist will probably say it s not the ultimate federalism. that s the big argument. it allows flexibility in the states. they can do they want. you can see which ideas work better. there s a little bit of an inherent bias cooked in. if you want to move towards single-payer you don t need a waiver from hhs. if you want to test out market reforms, you do need a waiver. with that being the case and the need for the changes to be taken place pretty quickly within 18 or 24 months, you might see a rush toward the easier to accomplish changes, move toward more single-payer as opposed to getting a real chance to try out some of these more exciting market-based reforms. bret: the biggest criticism is the pre-existing conditions would be left up to the states. cassidy points out that if the state wants to change, it must establish there is adequate and affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. everything will end up depending on what hhs determines adequate and affordable coverag coverage. the argument would be the obamacare regulations are much more rigid. less wiggle room. there is another wrinkle which is some of the blue states senators are pointing out that under the funding formula lindsey graham has worked out, there medicaid would be a little bit less generous. red states would go up. i think that s a sweetener lindsey graham put imprecisely for some of those red states which is maybe why some of their governors are on board. you have governors, and it s important to note the republican states that have expanded medicaid or nervous about what this would mean. talking about nevada, ohio. they would be pressuring their senators. because of the way the money works out, they are going to be pressuring their senators to make sure at the least their state doesn t end up with less money they have now. bret: there is a sense of optimism or at least increasing optimism on the hill about the numbers. they are still not there. we ve been down this road before. i think we might characterize it as forest optimism. there is nowhere else to go. this is still a bank shot. i think you talked to republicans and they will say we feel solid with 46, 46, 48 vote. rand paul is a most certainly a no. susan collins sounds like a no. dean heller, who had opposed some of the earlier reforms is a cosponsor of the measure. but lisa murkowski, rob portman, shelley moore capito, senators like that are up in the air. john mccain who had given some signal he might be in favor of it, it s a bill that s proposed by one of his very good friends. he s gone back to the argument that he made to oppose the earlier attempts at reform, that he wants it done through regular order. it s not going to be. i think it s a very dicey proposition for this to pass in the optimism, it s cute but i m not sure it means it s going to pass. through on the other stipulation that arizona governer ducey is behind it. mollie, you re counting heads. i think more optimistic than steve. rand paul apparently is the only republican who meant it when he said we are going to repeal obamacare. he s not supporting it because it does not repeal obamacare. i think anyone else other than susan collins, everything evers pretty flexible. there is a lock to sweeten the deal. bret: i have seen a lot of interviews with senator paul and he voted for the skinny repeal but yet he s not voting for this. this skinny repeal was not repealing obamacare either. it gave a pathway toward repeal and it was a move toward, the republicans have been claiming for years they re going to repeal obamacare. replaced isn t part of it. at least there was something to that bill, some movement that could be made in ground on which you would claim to keep going. republicans weren t telling the truth when they said they were going to repeal obamacare so the question becomes what s the best way to have government handling these things. for a lot of conservatives, block grants are the way to go. bret: the namesake of the law, the former president. when i see people trying to undo the hard-won progress for the 50th or 60th time, it is aggravating. it frustrates. and it s frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents. bret: of course he doesn t talk about the fact that the law itself is imploding and a lot of these states. because some of us don t think it is imploding and a lot of states and the defects have been exaggerated. without a cbo score. i recall john mccain saying he wanted regular order and bipartisanship. something that s being left out is the bipartisan effort that was going between lamar alexander and patty murray. that seems to be over. it will be interesting whether lamar alexander can be brought on board for this bill, given his position on that one. bret: if you talked with state that is seen premiums go up 125%, you don t think that s we are talking about the premiums increasing on the individual market and major coverage advances through medicaid expansion which is what this targets. of course obamacare is not perfect. massive overspending. rand paul voted for a bill that was 100% of obamacare funding. this keeps 90% of obamacare funding and he opposes it. he s got some explaining to do. bret: tough political races in alabama and virginia. from frequent heartburn. all day, and all night. now packed into a pill so small, we call it mini. new clearminis from nexium 24hr. see heartburn differently. when this guy got a flat tire in the middle of the night, so he got home safe. yeah, my dad says our insurance doesn t have that. what?! you can leave worry behind when liberty stands with you™. liberty mutual insurance. your insurance on time. tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody s perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won t raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. your insurance on time. tap one little bumper, and up go your rates. what good is having insurance if you get punished for using it? news flash: nobody s perfect. for drivers with accident forgiveness, liberty mutual won t raise your rates due to your first accident. switch and you could save $782 on home and auto insurance. call for a free quote today. liberty stands with you™ liberty mutual insurance. the one who will be in the building from the great state of alabama in the u.s. senate? that is what a g.o.p. primary senate runoff is all about. roy roy moore, luther strange. president trump supporting luther strange, tweeting just in the past minute alabama is so lucky to have a candidate like big luther strange. smart, tough on crime, borders and trade. loves the vets and military. president is heading down on friday. the polls in alabama, roy moore and luther strange at 35.4. molly, this is something. i think a lot of people think this has a lot to do with donald trump supporting one candidate over the other but i think people are forgetting how much fatigue and anger there is over the governor bentley situation. he had an affair with a staffer and used government resources to cover it up. people feel luther strange with two involved with that. he promised he would investigate bentley. no investigation happen. i think that s a more telling issue dividing people. donald trump coming into campaign for him will probably be huge. he is well loved. we will see what happens. bret: it s kind of look at the bannon versus the other part of the party. sebastian gorka, sarah palin doing an event for roy moore and the president and vice president doing an event for luther strange. has donald trump become establishment? i think mollie is right. local dynamics are going to mean more than the national dynamics but it s been fascinating to watch the primary unfold. you ve had three candidates making the argument alabama voters they are more like donald trump. they are closer to donald trump and they will be more faithful to the agenda. mitch mcconnell who s been at odds with donald trump on several things as of late, ran ads in favor of luther strange. making the argument he would be more supportive of donald trump than mo brooks or roy moore. roy moore could lose in a general election and he could win. and away we shouldn t be too surprised this is happening. there is some precedent in past election cycles on the republican side. very passionate, out there kind of very conservative primary candidates capturing the imagination of their local electorate. christine o donnell in delaware. and it drives the establishment crazy. what he demonstrates is in politics, and low turnout elections, off years, a guy who has the excitement in the movement behind him, and roy moore does. roy moore has his people. this stands on the ten commandments impresses folks in alabama. there are a lot of republicans who are in the voting booth every time to send a message to their party establishment. that s who he s attracting. bret: it s so interesting to add the trump dynamic. drain the swamp and how that fits. mollie, the average in virginia. the governor s race. ralph northam and ed gillespie, the republican. northam appears to have a lead here but this is a purple state and it s going to be an interesting race. speak of the fate you ve seen republicans polling poorly to fy are at nearly a tie. the fact that gillespie is close is making people attention. he has great name recognition. the guy is running against is not very well-known. on the issues, ed gillespie is a northern virginia republican. usually you get the republicans from deeper in the state and the democrats running from northern virginia. he s a northern virginia guy, friendly with business. bret: he almost won the senate seat. when we come back, a police officer on the beat starts fiddling around. liz assumed she could trust her dating site. liz assumed all dressings were made equal. assume nothing. just like the leading brands, these kraft dressings are made with high quality ingredients, at a price you can feel good about. no wonder kraft is so good. with toothpaste or plain water. and even though their dentures look clean, in reality they re not. if a denture were to be put under a microscope, we could see all the bacteria that still exists on the denture, and that bacteria multiplies very rapidly. that s why dentists recommend cleaning with polident every day. polident s unique micro clean formula works in just 3 minutes, killing 99.99% of odor causing bacteria. for a cleaner, fresher, brighter denture every day. for a cleaner, fresher, saved money on motorcycle insurance with geico. goin up the country. later, gary i have a motorcycle! wonderful. i m goin up the country, baby don t you wanna go? i m goin up the country, baby don t you wanna go? geico motorcycle, great rates for great rides. bret: finally tonight, a wisconsin police officer stone restaurant customers when he decided to take over for the band there. bret: officer jonathan landis had been patrolling on foot nearby. he says he s been playing violent since he was three. he used to work as a professional musician and teacher before joining the police department. he says he found the restaurant after hearing a violin in the distance and then he filed them. imagine that! nice job! thanks for inviting us into your home tonight, that s it for this special report. fair, balanced and still unafraid. no online show tonight, we will be back next week, the story hosted by martha maccallum starts right now. martha: tonight one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit u.s. territory has left puerto rico in the dark. tonight. i martha maccallum and that is where our story begins. maria, a storm that went from a category one to a category five in a matter of hours has now raked across st. croix and other islands in the chain, damages not yet fully known. and it had earlier today the winds were coming in at 155 miles an hour. it s been 85 years since they have taken a hit like the one they took today. thousands of people are seeking shelter, it is pitch black in the evening there now. the entire island, 100% of puerto rico has zero
official death toll is growing with the drowning of a police officer who was heading out to help people. we are clearly seeing the better side of america in these images as celebrities and athletes, politicians, regular folks for chin with money, supplies, and hard work to help. we have fox team coverage of the president s visit, the flooding of the politics. rick leventhal is in lake charles, louisiana, as harvey dumps on that state. trace gallagher is in houston to show us where the flooding their stance. we start with peter doocy in corpus christi on the president s visage. good evening. good evening, bret. the president left the white house for a fire house here in corpus christi where he told the men and women responsible for handling harvey s aftermath he has a history of them. we want to do it better than ever before. minutes after air force one touched down at an airport that was closed this weekend, the president told officials gathered at corpus christi firehouse number 5, he wants the relief effort to set a historical standard. we want to be looked at five years, ten years from now, that this is the way to do it. harvey was still hammering the houston area. he knows that what looks like a well-planned rescue and recovery effort still fail. we will congratulate each other when it s finished. the pentagon thinks the effort will go so long they announced today the possibility that 20,000 to 30,000 additional national guard troops could deploy. just like our first responders get tired and burnout, guardsmen will also get tired and burnout as we do this. this has to be a phased approach. texas is planning for it. emergency operations are being coordinated in the capital city of austin and president trump toward the nerve center this afternoon. the sad thing is this is long-term. no one has ever seen anything this long and no one has ever seen this much water. fema predicts people will ask for federal assistance. its prepositioning 2.8 million meals and 2.9 million liters of water in texas and louisiana. the red cross says shelters are packed with the 17,000 people so far. probably there s never been anything so expensive in our country s history. no matter what happens before the water receipts, president trump told locals of the category 4 harvey was no match for the spirit of the lone star state. this is historic. it s epic what happened. but you know what, it happened in texas, and texas can handle anything. air force one is on its way right now from austin to joint base andrews just outside d.c. she tried to stay out of 1st responders is way, the president didn t actually tour any harvey damage but he s coming back to the state saturday. bret: peter doocy, thank you. governor greg abbott will join us later with the latest. the rainfall amounts are staggering. so are the numbers of people driven from their homes. shelters are filling up at this hour, and it s not over yet. not by a long shot. correspondent trace gallagher is in houston with the latest we are in houston where it is still raining. hundreds of homes around the lake with water to the second-story. they all look the same. there are hundreds of people who have been rescued from this area today. people are still out there in their homes and so are the boats but some people are refusing to leave. the authorities are telling them if a boat comes by, you better get on it because there might not be another one. overwhelmed, summary of what waterlogged residents and we are a first responders are dealing with as tropical storm harvey hovers offshore. preparing to reload and re-strike. houston police alone report 3500 people rescued from floodwaters. the national guard adds another 3,000. of immediate concern, two reservoirs just north starting to overflow their banks despite controlled releases. some nearby communities seeing water levels suddenly rising 7 inches an hour. we are looking for four victims. the problem we are having is when they call number one there evening physical street addresses and we can t see the street addresses. dramatic before and after photos showing the inundation s swallowing roads, entire neighborhoods. kept rising, kept moving. just got wetter. with 911 emergency systems jams, residents and their rescuers are using social media to prioritize. knowing the dangers will last indefinitely. we are expecting a peak in the reservoir at the end of the week but to get the water to receipt, and to get it out of homes it will take several weeks. with 30,000 residents displaced from homes and growing rapidly, local shelters are over capacity. downtown houston s convention center has now doubled its capacity with some people lying on towels and cardboard. it s not your home. we understand that. it s a shelter where people are safe. people are dry, and people are out of the floodwaters and that s what we need to be doing. some cities as far away as dallas and san antonio are setting up mega shelters to handle the overflow. at least 14 people reportedly killed so far, among them a family of six caught in their van when waters rose. a similar fate for houston police sergeant steve perez, trapped in his patrol car. as much as we wanted to recover him last night, we couldn t put more officers at risk. what we knew in our hearts was going to be a recovery mission. as heartrending as these stories are and these images, keep in mind people have their own stories. this woman just lost her husband. she s 80 years old. this family down here had just finished renovating the house after a flood earlier this summer over memorial day. bret: trace gallagher live in houston. thank you. louisiana, as we said, as bracing for major flooding from a reenergized harvey. this on the 12th anniversary of the day hurricane katrina stormed ashore as a category three hurricane. rick leventhal is in lake charles with the latest. good evening. good evening, bret. calcasieu parish has been pounded by rain for seven days and they ve got more rain today and they are expecting more tonight. they have been seeing waves of it. they expect to get quite a bit more. you ve been hearing a lot about the cajun navy. we have examples of some of the boats and their drivers are staged here in the parking lot of the lake charles civic center. they ve been told and stayed here and prepare for emergency calls in this area. there were hundreds of people rescued last night. there could be more in need today, and the governor approved today bringing fuel here to this parking lot to give these guys the fuel they need for their boats and trucks. and also food. so they can make nachos rescued here but also to travel between lake charles and houston and surrounding areas. one of these guys told me they tried to get to texas this morning and were turned around because the roads were too bad. meanwhile the lake charles civic center is being turned into a massive rescue shelter. another shelter in town was swamped earlier today by water. the purple heart rec center surrounded by floodwater earlier today so that s one reason why they had to open a bigger shelter. also the need potentially for hundreds, if not thousands of evacuees from texas making their way to this area. we are told some texans are in this chapter already. we saw dozens of rescues last night, in fact we are told the sheriff s department, fire department, wildlife officials and the national guard pulled some 500 people out of several neighborhoods surrounding lake charles. high waters that rose, heavy storms overnight, swapping their homes. we went to the same neighborhood and the streets were better. the water had dissipated but the streets were still flooded, just not into houses. again, because this area so saturated, they are fully expecting more people will need rescues tonight. again, the national guard, one of the agency helping out here. we spoke with the major they are about the assets they have in place, and the work they are doing. we drive in. we helped load them in the back of the truck. sometimes physically we have to pick them up and get them in the back, the elderly, the disabled. they have to be picked up and put in the back of the truck. have you been doing? doing outstanding. the guardsmen in the state of louisiana, we are well-trained, well-equipped and we stand ready to respond to anything that the local authorities need. we also saw a resident putting sandbags artist home not just because of floodwater but because snakes are in the water. the snakes have been coming into some homes. that s another reason they want to put sandbags outside. we have flash flood warnings in effect and the possibility of tornadoes overnight and throughout the day tomorrow in the region. bret: unfortunately they know that all too well. rick leventhal in louisiana we will continue our harvey storm coverage shortly. i will ask texas governor greg abbott about his meeting with president trump and his concerns. governor abbott in a few minutes. stocks up. nasdaq jumped 19. president trump is dealing with more than just the harvey aftermath. there is of course other news. to make a new wrinkle to the investigation of russian interference in the u.s. election. it has to do with mr. trump s attempts to put his mark on moscow. chief white house correspondent john roberts fills us into night. the project launched in september of 2015 was a gleaming hotel, office tower, and residents that would dominate the moscow skyline. at the center of the proposal, trump organization attorney michael cohen and deal broker felix slater who would act as liaison between the trump organization of the russian government which would have to grant permits for the project. november 3rd, 2015, an email to colin breaking that the project would be a boon to then candidate donald trump. writing our boy can become president of the u.s. and we can engineer it. i will get all of putin s team to buy in and manage it. in a letter,: laid out the timetable for the project, signed by late january 2016 it became apparent the proposal wasn t feasible and should not be pursued any further. cohen said seder sometimes used colorful language. president trump said he had no business dealings with russia. i have nothing to do with russia. i know nothing about the inner workings of russia. i own nothing in russia. people thought i owned office buildings in moscow. i don t have property in russia. what the president said at the time he said it did not appear to contradict the timeline. an attorney for the president also points out the project never got beyond a letter of intent that there was never any kind of business deal signed with russian entities. it wasn t for lack of trying. in mid-january 2016, what it was apparent the project was stalled, cohen sent an email and writes as this project is too important, i am hereby requesting your assistance. i respectfully request someone, preferably you, contact me so that i might discuss the specifics as well as arranging meetings with the appropriate individuals. cohen did not know peskov s email. he says less than two weeks later he decided to abandon the trump tower project. doesn t recall hearing back from peskov. attorneys who are close to cohen are saying it s evidence of anti-collusion if he didn t even know peskov s personal email address. we can report donald trump jr. has agreed to talk to investigators. he was facing an subpoena. jared kushner spoke with the committees. he will sit down with a transcribed interview. we don t yet know the date but it looks like he s gotten away from a subpoena by saying i will sit down. we can talk with each other and you can transcribe what i have to say. bret: thank you. there are growing concerns that the recovery efforts from harvey could be hampered by hundreds of federal jobs still unfilled since president trump took office. james rosen tells us the president himself weighed in and does not think it s a problem. fox & friends in the morning is the best show, and it s the absolute most honest show. a week later, the show s most loyal and influential viewer was dutifully tuned in to hurricane coverage only dizzy pointed questions raised about the trump administration s confidence in staffing the executive branch. i know right now, you know how much is on the line. you brought up a great point last night. where is the staff? at homeland security, fema, u.s. trade representative s office. they are doing a huge renegotiation of nafta. bob lighthizer doesn t have a permanent deputy. that s a massive undertaking. they are doing it with a smaller staff and it s not ideal. 20 minutes later the president tweeted. we are not looking to fill all of those positions, don t need many of them. reduce size of government. of the more than 4,000 political appointments the president makes, 1100 require senate confirmation. of those, only 124 are on the job. roughly 145 more are awaiting senate confirmation. more than 800 are filled by holdovers with time left on their appointments or are on field awaiting a nominee. in order to reduce the number of political appointees in that category, you need to do it in a systematic and structured way. you need to change the actual operations of government and so far, he hasn t been doing that. stick with the trump administration has announced the elimination of several dozen high and mid-level post at the state depe special envoys for climate change, syria, sudan, south sudan. senior representative to the minsk group and special coordinator for haiti. bret: special report continues from the white house. i will talk with kellyanne conway when we come kellyanne conway when we come back. did you know slow internet can actually hold your business back? say goodbye to slow downloads, slow backups, slow everything. comcast business offers blazing fast and reliable internet that s up to 16 times faster than slow internet from the phone company. say hello to faster downloads with internet speeds up to 250 megabits per second. get fast internet and add phone and tv now for only $34.90 more per month. call today. comcast business. built for business. bret: welcome back to special report live from the white house. president trump and his team dealing with their first natural disaster and is one of historic proportions as we ve been telling you on this program. as the president is on his way back to the white house, there s also a lot of other news to cover. that s get the latest from counselor to the president, kellyanne conway. thanks for joining us. your assessment. you have heard from the team. the president s thoughts about his visit and take away. the president and first lady and key cabinet members along with some of the senior staff visited corpus christi and austin. to get a briefing from local officials, see the volunteers in action, the neighbor to neighbor, stranger to stranger rescues. and then go to the state capital and receive a briefing from governor abbott. he stayed away from houston which has been impacted the most and does plan to perhaps visit the area if appropriate on saturday. the president was struck today by two major things. one is for sure coordination, the effort thing put forth by our local, state, federal government. the prepositioning of assets. 2.5 liters of water 2.5 million liters of water. i think the second part is the best of the u.s. in action. people helping other people and making sure folks are getting the information they need. we want to think the media for connecting people with the information they need. diapers, pet care, housing, food, the supplies people need. bret: i heard the president say funding is going to come through, that he s going to push the funding through. if you look at the fema budget submitted, it was submitted with a decrease of 7.4%. obviously this is for this disaster but that s a drop of $838 million. do you think there s a reconsideration now about that, considering how much you are relying on fema question! the president made clear yesterday and again today, he expects congress to act to get the recovery money that the people of texas need. we all know recovery takes a long time. nobody should put in artificial time frame on it. a lot of people suffering, a lot of folks have a long road of recovery had. will be there for them. the funding will be there but in terms of fema if you look at the effort put forth by the head of fema, brock long, and his team. we have 2,000 members from fema on the ground in texas right now helping along with acting director and her team. it s been a remarkable coordinated effort. the president has made clear he wants to make sure the funding is there and that we focus on those in need. bret: for the money has to come from somewhere. he was going to decrease it but is he reconsidering? he wants congress to act with him. bret: there is big news out of north korea. we are getting worried that the north korean leader kim jong un was at the actual launch of this missile going over japan. nikki haley, u.s. ambassador to the u.n. said enough is enough today. we heard the president saying the threats cannot last. what is enough is enough. what does it mean? the president says all options are on the table. he had an extended conversation with mr. abe of japan, their sovereignty was attacked in such a brazen way. i read a couple different reports today that this type of attack has not been seen in decades if ever. obviously the president has been working with south korea, china, japan and others. he talked about sanctions, other options. i think the president will do what he s always promised to do witches consult with his larger security team and not broadcast ahead of time what he ll do. the real perpetrator here is north korea. let s be frank about that. this violates basic international standards of behavior. north korea shows it s willing to brazenly attack other nations sovereignty. bret: the last time you were here we asked about the russian investigation how things are progressing and you said it was hillary clinton, not the russians, that propelled donald trump the white house. now there are these news storie stories. here is candidate trump and then president trump talking about ties to russia. i have nothing to do with russia. i have drawn. john, are you a smart man. i have nothing to do with russia. i have nothing to do with russia. i have nothing to do with russia. maybe they say donald trump is involved. the answer is no. i had nothing to do with it. i had nothing to do with russia. i have no deals there. i don t know anything. still we saw john roberts report about michael cohen, trump attorney, executive vice president of the trump organization emailing with dimitri pesek off to push through this trump tower deal. that was in january 2016. we are told mr. trump signed off on a letter of intent. nothing came of it. you will recall michael: was besmirched by many earlier this year because they had the wrong michael cohen. saying he had been in russia. michael cohen said he had never been in russia. he was out with his son when they said he was there. he s already been besmirched once. nothing came of it. no deal was made, no visit was made and when the president says he doesn t deal in russia, watched gas said again and again what he has said again and again is that he was there for the miss universe pageant. he has no business dealings there and in this case no deal was made. for the trump towers all over the world, moscow does not have one. bret: sure about the deal was being talked about it. there was a push in february, january 2016. you would think nothing at all might not be the accurate statement. let s look at what the investigation is supposed to be about. everybody breathlessly predicting you re going to see interference, collusion, and affecting the election results. last time i said hillary clinton, not the russians, propelled donald trump to victory. i think no one can argue with that. that s what we promised. but for collusion, that donald trump would not be president, that s just not true. adam schiff and mark warner, the democratic members and the committees, they spend more time on tv than they do investigating. bret: the investigation is not over. do you expect it to end soon? it s churning up a lot of interest. the president and others have said they will cooperate. people are revealing informatio information. don jr., jared kushner. others have said they will come forward. what do we have so far, when the president says it hasn t gone anywhere, we can t even get most people in the media to cover what we do know about debbie wasserman schultz s i.t. aide who was charged and arrested. we can t get people exorcised about things we do know yet we are constantly looking, a conclusion in search of evidence. bret: finally, tax reform rollout tomorrow. will there be a specifics to give a road map to congress of what the president wants? the president will provide a rollout tomorrow in springfield, missouri. we spend about 7 billion hours by some estimates trying to complying with the tax code. it benefits those who can afford lawyers and attorneys and accountants to show them ways around the tax code. he wants to make sure we lower the rate, middle-class tax reform and do away with the special interests and the swamp-centric handouts that exist. this is a jobs bill. the best way to stimulate growth and create more jobs and unleash prosperity is reducing the tax burden on job creators and job holders. in september, candidate trump put forth 25 million jobs over ten years. he is still talking about that and it included deregulation. he has eliminated about a dozen or so, reducing the tax code and we hope congress will step up and support the president. bret: we appreciate your time. governor of texas greg abbott joins us with the latest on harvey and his meeting with the president bret: national weather service says harvey has dumped 52 inches of rain in some parts of texas. we are getting word about this, as we speak. we are getting the totals coming in as the rain continues to fall in various elements of the state of texas. that s where we find the governor of texas who spent his day with the president. harvey is still a tropical storm. president trump was in the state to view damage and coordinate the response. let s get an update on where the rescue and recovery effort stands. texas governor greg abbott joins us. thank you for being here. i know you re busy. my pleasure. bret: your thoughts on the day today as the president came to your state and really saw and heard about all the rescue and recovery efforts. we hosted the president for two stops today. first was in corpus christi which is close to where the initial land fall of the hurricane hit the texas shore. that was the first catastrophe we had in this whole weather incident. the president saw similar damage but got to hear firsthand from the people of corpus christi. rockport and those areas, learned firsthand the challenges and the needs they have and the reality that this is not going to be an issue that s going to be solved in a couple days. there was the briefing about what s transpiring in houston, texas, as we spoke. the challenge of people in houston are facing. most importantly, the compassion and concern i could see on the president s face and his reactions. the president is very concerned about texans and is very committed to helping us address our needs. bret: what s your biggest concern at this hour? you are trying to rescue people from their homes but the logistics of all of that and possibly the levees and the concern about those. there are multiple challenges taking place at the same time. first is saving lives, and that means the rescue part but also the levees and doing everything we can to prevent and reduce the amount of flooding that may or could take place. and then of course at the same time, dealing with the evacuation and the housing of these people who have been evacuated. that s something that s not going to be done overnight. it s going to take weeks or months. that s just stage two. stage three will be the long-term process of helping everyone whose homes have been flooded, that have been wiped out, get back on track in permanent housing. bret: it s pretty amazing that 12 years ago tonight, hurricane katrina stormed into the gulf coast. we really felt all of the after effects, days, weeks, even months after. can you tell somebody in houston how long it might be before the floodwaters receded, just by talking to your experts and what this potentially looks like timewise? listen, we are hoping the rain and we believe the rain will be ending here within hours, if not days. if the reality is with the high water, it will be many more days before the water recedes. just because the water recedes doesn t mean that all the problems are fixed. because of the size and magnitude of this flooding, we all need to come to the sober reality that this is going to be a long time process. we have been dealing with the fema director brock long all day long. he s been emphasizing the necessity of everybody coming to grips with how long this is going to take. in order to rebuild the houston area because of this once in a lifetime flooding incident. bret: last thing, governor, your assessment of the coordination between your state and the federal government and how that s going. the coordination between texas and the federal government has been seamless. in fact, i ve never seen it work as well. the coordination began about ten days before the hurricane even hit our shore. we were prepared in advance. the president and his staff, including every cabinet member. i have talked to almost all the cabinet members the last ten days and from top to bottom, they have all work side-by-side with the state of texas providing us everything we needed. bret: governor abbott, i have received a lot of texts and facebook messages and twitter and tweet about people praying for you. we would love to have you back to get an assessment. we thank everybody. i need to tell you there are so many states that have been helpful. pretty much every state across the country has sent out, and we appreciate it all. thank you, america. bret: thinks to governor abbott. one of the most famous tv pastors in the world is dealing with a public relations issues. on by social media. religion correspondent lauren green reports on how this is all coming together and how joel steen is dealing with damage control in a fair and balanced reports. joel goldstein s reputation took a hit. not opening his church during the storm. exclusive pictures showing parts of the building underwater and inaccessible. when waters receded, osteen opened the area. liquid s doors are open another photo showing air mattresses on the floors. lakewood, one of houston area churches that canceled services because of a deluge of water. several churches turned to social media to reach out to stranded. these are dark days but i believe god has set the church up to shine bright. critics targeted the lakewood church because of the arena-type auditorium. social media posts supposedly pressured the osteens to open the church but in a statement osteen said we ve never closed our doors. will be a distribution center. we are prepared to shelter people once the cities and county shelters reach capacity. that point was reached tuesday. government officials calling for more places for flood victims. we are looking for other shelter locations. the church will be used as a police command center while police headquarters are underwater. and it s taking donations for its distribution center, asking for diapers, baby formula, baby food and other supplies. houston is home to several mega churches. many becoming mega shelters in the storm. thank you. we talked about it with kellyanne conway. up next, president trump says all options on the table after north kore .. bret: you heard earlier from kellyanne conway. president trump says all options on the table when it comes to north korea. he is considering or threatening military action to deal with north korea following yesterday s ballistic missile test that flew over japan. tonight benjamin hall has the latest on what japan is doing and how it s reacting to this missile launch. 6:00 a.m. in northern japan. siren sound. the alert system warning citizens a missile is on its way. across japan, people could only look on. north korea has conducted dozens of missile tests under kim jong un but this was the first over japan since 2009. the midrange ballistic missile designed to carry a nuclear payload flew 1700 miles, just 300 short of the distance to guam though in a different direction. condemnation of swift. no country should have missiles flying over them like those 130 million people in japan. president trump responded quickly saying north korea had shown contempt for its neighbors. and that all options are on the table to deal with the isolated regime. south korea responded by releasing video of their own. they conducted bombing drills, a rehearsal for taking out the rogue state s artillery. the japanese military participated in a drill of its own ballistic missile system. despite previous threats to shoot down north korean missiles come on this occasion they refrained. japanese prime minister abe said he had been reassured by a 40 minute phone call with president trump. president trump said the united states is 100% with its allied japan. and expressed his commitment to defend japan. kim jong un seems unafraid or unaffected by condemnation. his latest test, like the others, seems likely to go unpunished. once again, the u.s. and international community seem uncertain about how to respond. sections just aren t working and short of military action, there are very few other options. bret. bret: benjamin hall in london. thank you. another fox news alert. we ve learned about indictments related to the beatings last month outside the turkish ambassador s residence in washington. 19 people, including 15 turkish security officials, have been indicted for attacking protesters during the washington visit of turkish leader recep ergogan. we will have details on that. president trump tours the damage from hurricane harvey while washington politics loom in coming days. we will get reaction from the panel when we co .. hey you ve gotta see this. c mon. no. alright, see you down there. mmm, fine. okay, what do we got? okay, watch this. do the thing we talked about. what do we say? it s going to be great. watch. remember what we were just saying? go irish! see that? yes! i m gonna just go back to doing what i was doing. find your awesome with the xfinity x1 voice remote. i just want to say we love you. you are special. we re here to take care going well. i want to thank you for coming out. we re going to get you back and operating immediately. this has been a total cooperative effort. again, we will see you soon. i will tell you, this is historic. it s epic what happened. but, you know what? it happened to texas. and texas can handle anything. thank you all, folks. thank you. [cheers and applause] bret: texas can handle anything. president trump in texas today talking in corpus christi there as he gets ready to come back here to the white house. let s bring in our panel tom rogan commentary writer for the washington examiner. katie schlapp columnist for the washington times and here at the white house julie paste associated editor for the associated press. so far logistically things are going well and this trip kind of showed that with cabinet members and with the governor of texas. certainly the white house and the administration at large feel pretty good so far about the way that the federal government has been responding. i think it s clearly important to the president that he be on the ground. he talked about taking a second trip on saturday. these storms though are really long-term thing for a government. it s the immediate response, which is so crucial, getting people out of their houses that are flooded. getting them to shelter. but then it s the long-term recovery effort. that s where we saw in new orleans after katrina that the government also fell down on the job a bit. so this is going to be something that this administration is going to have to manage but certainly short-term the people are feeling good about the response. the president seems energized to get down there and take a firsthand look at what was going on and talk to first responders. bret: talked to kellyanne conway about the cut to fema in the 2018 administration budget. obviously relying heavily on fema now. so that may all change it? definitely does change. this is where congress plays an important role, special when it comes to emergency funding for this sort of catastrophic storm. i think for the president at this moment, he is the comforter in chief. it s an incredibly important role for the president to play. president trump has basically stepped into that role very effectively. he is showing that there is strong coordination with the cabinet secretaries and local and state counterparts. so, i really think for the president this has been an incredibly important step and this is something that we didn t see, for example, when it was hurricane katrina and president george w. bush and he received a lot of criticism when he did not go and visit the devastated areas back in the day with the rapid response and i think you have certain members in that white house team that recognize that have been there before who went through hurricane katrina and are basically helping to ensure that president trump does this the right way. bret: yeah, back then the bush people didn t want to get in the way either and obviously had a different local and state but you have got to be there. bret: government body dealing with the storm. i want to turn to other topics. other news and that is north korea. here is thu.s. ambassador to th. no country should have missiles flying over them like 130 million people in japan. it s unacceptable. they have violated every single u.n. security council resolution that we have had. and so i think something serious has to happen. i think enough is enough. bret: enough is enough, tom. and trying to get this administration to say what enough looks like is tough. it is. and that speaks to the nature that you are dealing with a state actor that has nuclear weapons. i think we will see a few things happening in the coming days. number one, i think there will be an agreement between the united states and japan about potentially shooting down a ballistic missile should this happen again. i think you will see u.n. action led by nikki haley to try to crack down on north korean imports. i think you will see a build-up in the region of u.s. military striking forces that would be predisposed towards hitting the north korean ballistic missile development sites. bret: that would change the dynamic. julie, that is the number one international issue they are dealing with. it absolutely is. i think what we have seen over the last several weeks is that they are dealing with the exact same dynamic that president bush and president obama dealt with which is that the north koreans are simply not deterred by tough talk or sanctions, economic pressure, unless it comes from the chinese. and the trump administration has put a lot of effort into trying to prod china along. china just moves on its own time frame. they do not tend to move rapidly. they do not tend to change government policy quickly even if th in the face of threas of economic pressure from the u.s. that s the situation the administration has to face now. if north korea continues to move in the directions we have seen for the last several months and years is, there anything they can do with china and is there a military option. most people i have talked to in the administration say despite the threat of military action, despite the talk of all options on the table there really isn t a great military option that we are looking at right now. bret: we will turn to tax reform with a rollout tomorrow that we re told is going to last a number of states a number of speeches from this president. panel a little shorter tonight. we apologize for that thank you. when we come back, people helping people hurt by harvey. we can t see enough of these stories. .. pretty bret finally tonight, people across the nation continue to help victims of hurricane harvey in big and small ways. anheuser bush, for example is trading in beer for water this week. the company put beer production on hold and is, instead, producing 50,000 cans of safe drinking water to distribute to flood victims. first thing you want to do is get people hydrated because usually when a disaster happens it s in the summertime. there is a lot of heat. there is a lot of humidity. bret: people from all over the country getting involved. one little boy in philadelphia running a lemonade stand raising money for harvey victims. he recently to philadelphia from houston. he said he weighs worried about his family in texas and doing his part while wearing a texan hat and superman cape. was a little concerned the past few days. and his grand patience we have been talk to them luckily. we were trying to think of things we could do to help. we feel so far away. bret: good job, you can help too. there are countless go fund me pages online. obviously a lot of celebrities running a number of different donation operations. you can raise money for everything from disaster relief to animal shelters to all kinds of specific towns. families affected by the storms. research the funds donated on the sites like the better business bureau so you don t contribute to a scam but go fund me is pretty good. that s it for this special report, fair, balanced and unafraid. the story with martha starts now this is a fox news alert. after days of rain the sun peeking out in houston but the city not in the clear yet. rescuers in boats going door-to-door searching for survivors after harvey dumped 52 inches of rain. rob: donald trump issuing this message of hope to the lone star state. no one has ever seen this much water. it happened in texas and texas can handle anything. heather: more shelters opening as thousands seek refuge. live team coverage, we begin with rob schmidt, live in texas. it finally cleared out. we have seen some sunshine yesterday, the stars out today, looks like a few days of sunshine in south texas will help a little bit although we still have the problem of overflowing rivers and reservoirs and stuff like that was behind me one of the most dramatic scenes we have been able to find, i want to put the daytime video to demonstrate it better next to me but you can see the red light back there, this intersection dips down underneath this overpass, this had maybe 20 feet of water in it and yesterday you could have swum out there and climbed on top of a red light. it was unbelievable. i have never seen a picture like that. is this water received, we didn t know this car was here, it has gone down eight feet since yesterday as the rain has stopped, so we see a drying out in some areas which is good but this car was completely submerged as the water level was gone down. he has gone to corpus christi with a message of support for people in texas which was well-received. let s listen to the sound bite. we love you, you are special, it is going well and i want to thank you for coming out, we are getting you
but it s also a story about individuals and families. some of them are still in danger tonight. correspondent peter doocy starts us off in houston where some families are being allowed to see for the first time what s left of their homes. good evening, peter. speak a good evening, bret. in west houston right now, there are boat rescues underway in a part of town where there is a voluntary evacuation order. officials are saying that water levels could rise as more waters are released over dams the next two weeks. that is just one part of texas that is going to take a couple of weeks before they can even start to get back to normal. port arthur motiva refinery still submerged. the high water there is part of the reasons why gas prices are higher across the country. but texas governor at greg abbott doesn t want harvey victims worrying about long lines at the pump or a shortage. the bottom line is the state of texas will have plenty of gasoline showing up at gasoline stations across the state of texas. so don t worry. we will not run out. the pentagon said today since harvey hit, the military and coast guard combined for 16,000 rescues. there is more help on the way. two more navy ships will be on the coast on wednesday. the u.s. [indistinct] are no longer just doing water aerial rescues or dropping off the past few weeks. they are helping law in enforcement help monitor areas. the aerial tour by black hawk helicopter also took us over beaumont. a town where harvey s high water cut off the water supply because a pump station flooded. at ground level, some residents line up at a nearby walmart for about a bottled water. we lost everything from my family, our house is definitely gone, we don t know what we are going to do. but thank god for the ships. tomorrow, president trump will return to the impact zone with planned stops in texas and louisiana. today, he pledged long-term support. we will help them all recover from this tragedy. we will renew our hope, community, we will renew our hope and rebuild those homes and businesses and schools and businesses of in houston, where conditis are improving, the mayor is pleading with residents who didn t evacuate before the water came to a back way before the mold comes. remaining in their homes for the next 10-15 days is simply. it s simply not in your best interest. in that time frame, there s danger for parts of texas spared by harvey so far. there may be some people who live near the richmond, texas, area who have not yet been impacted by flooding waters. you need to understand about the possibility that you could be impacted by flooding waters in the coming days. this is what it looks like and every neighborhood we ve been to where the water is low enough for residents to safely return. the next step of harvey recovery includes the very painful process of discarding a whole house bill of memories for tens and thousands of families in texas. bret? bret: a long process. peter doocy in texas. peter, thank you. president trump says he makes his initial request for harvey relief and coming in the next couple of days, but it will take years for residents in texas and louisiana to recover. the changes, in some cases, may be permanent. here is correspondent doug mckelway. 12 years after her again katrina struck the gulf coast, new orleans has never fully recovered. hundreds and thousands left and never came back. its population today is 80% of what it was before the storm. does the same fate awaits houston? it will recover. it will absorb this shock. and how long it s going to take, you know, depends on how big the shock is. aside from the vulnerability to hurricanes, there is little similarity between the two core regions. former louisiana congressman billy townsend said of his state, half of louisiana is underwater and the other half is under indictment. after katrina, one louisiana senate seat clipped republican, new orleans democratic mayor ray nagin was sent to prison on corruption charges the value states tolerance for corruption grove dell nature of many companies away and kept them away. the political culture is far more effective, and it s far more pro-market, pro-economic growth, pro-business than in louisiana. for hundreds of thousands of texas business small business owners facing a uncertain future, there is a silver lining. the nation needs houston. its workers and economy, one-third of u.s. gasoline supplies refined there from many fuel pipelines, industries lifeblood emanates from the gulf coast. the port of houston is a very, very big deal. it accounts for $250 billion plus of economic activity across the state of texas and beyond every year. it is that reality that has shifted debate in washington. to the returning republican congressman s priorities have been reset. i do not expect president trump is going to continue talking about a potential shutdown. a lot of republicans will be eager to provide help alongside with democrats. but congress new priority illustrates another reality that a country with a $20 trillion debt is not in a great financial position to bail out victims of unforeseen disasters yet to come. bret? bret: thank you. they were suggesting throughout the day that today was the day. the president would announce what his administration will do about young illegal immigrants who have been staying in this country because of a much disputed action by then president obama. daca. but late in the day, white out dash white house aides said there will be a reaction. the so-called dreamers wait for official word. john roberts has the latest on the north lawn. bret, during the election campaign, president trump promise to end the deferred action child arrivals program, which he said was unconstitutional. very soon, we will learn whether president trump will make good on that campaign pledge. sometime today or over the weekend, we will have a decision. maybe this afternoon. we will be releasing on daca sometime over the weekend. probably sunday, saturday. the latest will be monday. the timing appeared fluid, but as reported by fox news yesterday, president trump confirmed that the announcement on what to do about the so-called dreamers covered by the daca plan is coming. by the time the daily briefing rolled around, they appeared to have it nailed down. the president s priorities is to create a system that encourages our economy and american workers. press secretary sarah sanders said the decision is weighing heavily on president trump. he wants to make sure that this decision is done correctly. the process the president ending daca as we know it has provoked a strong reaction. how paul ryan say and today is the wrong thing to do. i believe this is something that congress has to fix. other lawmakers agree it s congress that needs to extend protections to dreamers. jeff flake of arizona tweeting today, congress needs to take immediate action to protect daca kids. north carolina secretary thom tillis is pushing for a conservative push for a dream act pushing conservative legislation that will address long-term uncertainty by creating a fair but rigorous process for legal status that requires individuals 18 or over to be either employed or pursue post secondary education or serve in the armed forces. while the president spends part of the week and finalizing his plans for daca, he will also travel to houston and lake charles, louisiana, to witness the discussion destruction ande whose lives were turned upside down. brought together by the unbreakable bronze of bond and loyalty that we have for one another. in the oval office today, president trump signed a proclamation declaring sunday as a national day of player for victims of the storm. we invite all americans to join us as we continue to pray for those who have lost family members and friends, and for those who are suffering from this great crisis. the white house tonight is finalizing an initial infusion of relief money for victims of hurricane harvey. the white house office of management and budget is looking for a $5.5 billion for fema and an additional $450 million for the small business administration disaster relief fund. but white house officials payment on what s needed. the total, trump bret, will be tens and billion dollars more. no one can venture a guess on what will ultimately be needed. bret: john roberts live in the north lawn. a second round of talks on renegotiating the naftao city. president trump has threatened to withdraw the u.s. from the 23-year-old trade pact with mexico and canada. one of mexico s negotiators is as pressing some optimism. he says issue include labor standard, local content rules, and dispute resolution mechanisms. stocks were up today. the dow gained 39 for the s&p 500 finished i had 5. the nasdaq climbed 7. the dow was up the nasdaq surge two and two-thirds. unemployment ticked up today. job growth slowed in august. consumer confidence is still very high. here to explain how all of that can be true is lauren simonetti of the fox business network. good evening, lauren. good evening, bret. it s strange how that all works out, but if you round out the report we got this morning, the trend is positive. 156,000 jobs added last month, that was it his appointment. those were provided lower. unemployment was higher coming in at 4.4%, but we are seeing wage growth. not much, just by $0.03 an hour last month, but if you look at this on a year-to-year basis, wages grew 2.5%. so the point is all of these are signs pointing to in improving economy and improving confidence. in fact, a happy now with their jobs than they have been in over a decade. so these are some of the reasons were finally for the first time in two years, getting the gdp primed to 3% and investors reactions to all of this is why the stock market, just give us the numbers for today in the week is actually up to five months in a row, this being the first day of september, bret? bret: and about investors, lauren, how much of that in washington? we ve got congress, if they can push through the president s agenda, but also be fed in interest rates? this job report, it s a goldilocks report for investors. it s not terrible, so no warning signals that the economy is collapsing paren not great, so the fed will necessarily raise interest rates this year. for this trump agenda, most experts say tax report not waking to the game. should we can and legislative win with mike americans get tax stocks, stock surge even more, bret. bret: lauren, thank you. how do you feel about the i cannot me? let me know on twitter and facebook.com. russia is avowing what it calls a tough response to a u.s. order to shut down moscow of austria s consulate in san francisco along with offices here in washington and in new york. they call it retaliation for the kremlin s order to cut staff in moscow. that was a response to new u.s. sanctions on russia. today, foreign minister sergei lever of of russia needs time to decide this afternoon. late this afternoon, smoke was seen pouring from the chimney at the russian consulate in san francisco. it was 100 degrees today at san francisco. not sure about the fire inside for the fire department says it was from a fire burning in a fireplace. so was something being burned purposely there? perhaps paper? we are still awaiting reaction from the russians and the state department. president trump is reacting to report we told you last night that then fbi director james comey drafted a letter exonerating hillary clinton long before the investigation into her email scandal and her mishandling of classified information was complete. chief intelligence correspondent katherine harris tonight with what comes from the administration continuing to defend comey s dismissal as wel well. those close to the president say he had several good reasons to fire fbi director james comey in may, and they liked him in the report that special counsel robert mueller has an early draft of the letter which may have focused on russia. we will be fully transparent with the investigation and i don t have anything to add beyond that. comey s testimony of the email case is also facing fresh scrutiny. the fbi director has created serious legal problems for himself. about her unsecured server for state department business on saturday, july 2nd, a holiday weekend. comey recommended against prosecution three days later. comey s testimony about the timeline appears to conflict with newly released government records that indicate he drafted his conclusion, exonerating clinton, in late april or early may, two months before clinton met with agents. did you make the decision not to recommend criminal charges relating to customer information before or after hillary clinton was interviewed by the fbi on july 2nd? after. in a tweet, the president said it s an evidence of a brake system. republican lawmakers are drawing attention to this exchange about clinton aides. the only way an interview takes place with the two central witnesses and the subject of the investigation is if the decision has already been made that all three people in that room are not going to be charged. and colleagues of ours believe i am lying about when i made the decision, please urge them to contact me privately so we can have a conversation about this. there may be broader implications for comey. he may not be a credible witness that we may be under the documents that the director was loose and i m candid with congress. he told them that s wide ranging. the special axis down the council team bret: thank you. immigrants detained on a wild weekend after president trump signed his first travel ban get their day in 1 bret: correspondent rich edison reports from the state department. the case bearing his name is finally settled, though the larger issue is far from resolved. hamid khalid darish in january detained in new york, a result of the trump s administration s first travel ban. america is the greatest nation, greatest people in the world. under his settlement, the government must notify those wrongly blocked from entering the united states in january and help them reapply for u.s. visas. adjusted s department tells fox news, although this case has been moved since march, when the president rescinded the original executive order and issued a new one that does not restrict the entry of iraqi nationals, the u.s. government has elected to settle this case on favorable terms. department officials say the decision affects fewer than 20 people and they have the right prior to this sentimental reapply for a visa. the next and ultimate legal destination for the president s travel ban? the u.s. supreme court. they will have a lot of issues to grapple with and a lot of complicated practicalities of how the band will work on the ground. and they will have to try to make sure they do not added to the confusion and instead clarify what is constitutional. the trump administration unveiled its first travel ban january. barring you citizens from iraq, syria, sudan, and yemen. the next day, a federal judge in york blocked some of the order. days later, a u.s. district judge in seattle halted the migration ban nationwide. a month later, the trump administration issued a new, limited order. a federal judge in hawaii blocked that executive order. in june, the supreme court reinstated some of that while it considers the issue. supreme court oral arguments are considered next month. they will consider how much power a president has over immigration, national security concern, and if any role that religion played in this order. bret: atop smalley official is warning the u.s. and al qaeda affiliate has seized of down the control of uranium mines in africa to supply iran with nuclear fuel. the state department is not disputing that report and is referring reporters to the somali government. as bad as things are in texas, conditions are nowhere near what s going on in yemen tonight. that country is experiencing the worst humanitarian crisis in the planet with a civil war that killed thousands and a calera epidemic putting up huge numbers. ravaged by war, yemen is in the midst of the worst calera cholera outbreak in the world. the epidemic has killed nearly 2,000 people, mostly children. more than 20 million people are in need of assistance. the health system depending on where you look at exactly has virtually broken down, or it s a about to break down. this is a very serious situation. it is a direct consequence of war. yemen has long been a failed state. the situation in the arab world s poorest countries has rapidly deteriorated over the last few years. afte arabian led coalition intervened in yemen s civil war, it was an effort to restore the internationally recognized government that was overthrown by iranian linked shiite rebels. the air strikes killing thousands of civilians has largely according to observers aure. they are accused of targeting civilians. this week, more than 60 of them demand the u.n. open a investigation into possible war crimes. we are strongly concerned, but we have a good phone conversation with the saudis to make sure they understand what our concerns are and the talk about where we go from here. both the obama and trump administration s back a saudi war effort out of fear of the ties to iran. as the humanitarian crisis grows in the war effort falters, that support is becoming increasingly more controversial. the u.s. has long maintaining counterterrorism presence in and around yemen to battle groups like al qaeda. but many analysts fear the ongoing saudi war there is only providing space for al qaeda to regroup. bret? bret: thank you. this is a fox news alert. this is a live picture from crosby, texas. there is a fire right now. you can see the huge plumes of black smoke at the texas chemical plant. this is the art, plant about 20 miles northeast of houston. the plant is still considered very dangerous. there were two explosions and fires yesterday. this has started to flare up again. holds very highly unstabe compounds that can explode, we are told, after losing the refrigeration, which happened when hurricane harvey s floodwaters engulfed the backup generators at this chemical facility. everyone around that facility, the residence, have been evacuated. about a mile and a half is the radius in which around this facility. yesterday, two blast blew open a trailer containing at least 2 tons of material. now we are told by authorities it s not considered toxic, but law enforcement officers complained of respiratory inflammation irritation. other officials say eight other trailers could go up at any time. you are looking live at crosby, texas. this is the arkema plant. this plant produces cups, plates, pvc piping, that sort of thing. they have to be kept very cool, these chemicals. and when the electricity went out, the heat went up, the worry was these explosions what happened. sure enough, they are happening. and you are looking live at this fire in crosby texas. we are going to continue to monitor this. authorities say there are no residents around here, but we will get an update from the ground as soon as we have any new information. up next, on some channels, it started days ago, the inevitable debate about hurricane harvey and the role of climate change. bret: if you are looking live at the arkema plant about 20 miles northeast of houston in crosby, texas, as we see this massive fire. the flames shooting up and the huge black plume of smoke. this is from some of the chemicals there that have had no power there since sunday. and the chemicals, the peroxides that are there stored at the plant, became too hot. the authorities warned there could be and likely would be explosions. there were two of them last night leading to these big fires, big plumes of smoke. we just had this happening at this hour. we are told there are no residents anywhere near there. the authorities have moved everyone back about a mile and a half. but when the pressure builds up in these chemicals in these containers, there is this popping sound. and then an explosion. you can imagine that this is a tough thing to watch for residents who live nearby, wondering if any of that smoke is going to cause major problems for that area. the chemical, the officials at the economy arkema said it was noxious, but wouldn t say it was toxic. authorities say they haven t had any problems as far as people being hospitalized based on the smoke, but they have moved everybody out of this region as we are watching this and that these flames continue. they say it s not over yet. there are a number of trailers still continuing containing these chemicals. basically, they are warmed to dangerous levels, they explode. you are looking at that live right now. we will continue to monitor this. in the meantime, vermont independent socialist senator bernie sanders who ran for the democratic nomination last year saying it s, pretty dumb not to ask hard questions about harvey and climate change. the senator made the comment on cnn. many people who feel men mage climb man-made climate change fuels storms like hurricane harvey are now forcibly making that case in the media. james rosen looks at the science and the politics tonight. even before hurricane harvey made platform friday afternoon, neil degrasse tyson considered it a teachable moment. the celebrated astrophysicist on twitter, no others were not far behind. it is fairly likely, certainly very likely that the effects of this hurricane were exacerbated by climate change. it s exactly the type of thing the experts on climate had been predicting. the national oceanic and atmospheric demonstration officially lists extreme weather events as one of several phenomena occurring more frequently because of climate change. but the shooting specific storms to climate change is, much harder. this branch of science is known as extreme event attribution and is still in its infancy. after hurricane sandy ravaged the midatlantic, professor gary lachman of north carolina state university, a leading atmospheric science, research the extent to how much world range climate change conjured into these claims are on high resolution numerical situations in conjecture with analyze and projected changes from a suite of general circulation models. of his results, published in the bulletin of the american meteorological society, he wrote within the limitations of the methods used, it s suggested that climate change to date only exerted a modest influence on the intensity of sandy. the global warming alarmists are really doing a disservice in the public debate by saying we should be spending trillions of dollars to try and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. when in fact, we should be spending billions of dollars to upgrade the infrastructure on the gulf coast of florida. asked if harvey was exacerbated by climate change, the environment protection agency put out a statement saying it s focus is on emergency response 325? bret: a former i.t. staffer is pleading not guilty to conspiracy and fraud charges. imran awan was a nurse at the university of utah has released video of her arrest refusing to draw blood from an unconscious patient. she was jeff payne detained her for interfering with the investigation. she was released after 20 minutes. no charges were filed for a police spokesman says the department there is investigating. president trump and the dreamers. the white house as we will have to wait until tuesday to officially find out what will happen. we will talk about immigration, check back in on that situation in crosby, texas, as well. in crosby, texas, as well. the panel joins me where the heart beats warm and true, that s texas. where we always welcome you, that s texas. in crosby, texas, as well. the panel joins me where we always find a way, that s texas. bret: fox news alert. you re looking live at crosby, texas, 20 miles northeast of houston. this is a chemical plant, arkema plant. our correspondent matt finn is in houston. joins us now by a phone. we are looking, math, at these huge claims, these plumes of smoke. authorities say they expected it to happen. it looks like it s happening again, one of these containers. well, bret, one of the most concerning things yesterday we were unable to establish how any irritants might be. we were getting so much conflicting information first from the sheriff who said, his guys are in the radius, it s mike s breathing and smoke from a campfire. a short while later, an executive from this chemical plant, arkema, got in front of the camera and said if you re in the radius, you need to close your windows. later in the evening, homeland security advisor tom foster said that at one point in the 5-mile radius, you are seeing those black plumes, you need to get out now. it is dangerous. trying to establish what was in the air, what was happening. couldn t get an answer. now, arkema says these are organic compounds. they have nine containers on the property. one of them combusted wednesday night. there was an explosion wednesday night. thursday morning, they are chemist said it wasn t an explosion, it was a chemical reaction. they did say the containers can go at any time. if they do, the material is very flammable. they did give that community a heads up. it looks like unfortunately we are seeing more fires. anybody in the 1.5-mile radius or even beyond, it is a very worrisome situation. bret: matt finn in houston. we look live here. this plant manufacturer manufactures organic peroxides, commonly used in these products like industrial paints, styrofoam plates, cups. you can see the smoke coming from the other facility right. to the right of the flames. that is more chemical. so you can expect as that he d continues that this could get bigger. and obviously a concern for those residents and the authorities. again, they are out of the area about a mile and a half back. we will continue to watch this as it develops here on fox. meantime, a decision about daca, the so-called dreamers. we are now told it will be tuesday. reporter: [interesting question] we love the dreamers. we love everybody. thank you very much. this goes back to a fundamental issue which is that one person doesn t have the unilateral authority to change the law and make new laws. they came out of the shadows at the invitation of their government. the question for the republican party is what do we tell these people? i am hopeful that even in an anti-immigrant climate from the last election when it comes to coming to this problem, we can find common ground. bret: so what is going to happen? how is it going to happen? let s bring in our panel. tom bevan, jesse antal, columnist for the washington times. and byron york, chief correspondent of washington. there is a decision here, it seems like it s going to be a walking in the middle, somehow. a caveat that the dreamers can stay. but we don t know how it s going to play out for what congress is going to do. right. that s the question. trump really doesn t want to do this. you can tell by his expression and the signals he s been given, he does not want to repeal this. he s going to try to punt. i think he wants congress to handle it. we heard from speaker ryan he wants congress to handle it. we will see if congress can handle it. to handle it, they will pass make some sort of specific legislation just for dreamers. but obviously, this all comes out of the fact that president obama couldn t get immigration reform through congress when he was in office. there is no chance that we are going to have any sort of comprehensive immigration reform. it s going to be this one little piece. medicine, looking at the white house briefing today, those reporters were trying to get the answer. is it conceivable that he could end this program can send all these people out of the country? the vice president said that the president will use a big heart to make his decision. what is the definition of big heart? determine, he s been working since the storm had to help the community in and around texas. is what s happening in texas and even louisiana i think the decision itself is weighing in on him. bret: they try it in all different kinds of ways to get them to answer. but tuesday, she kept on saying. they are going to have to wait until tuesday. that thing here is if he does not decide to be seen daca with ten states of bowing to sue the administration. if this does go to court, i don t think it s going to be upheld. this is something congress is ultimately going to have to handle regardless what happens on tuesday. you do have senator thom tillis, a number of lawmakers ready to dig into this, by written. about a third of the senate, the senators and senate voted for copperhead of immigration reform. republicans are in a funny position here. almost all of them argued that this was an unconstitutional overreach by president obama. and now the president is thinking about getting rid of it. they are saying, no, don t do that. then you have paul ryan saying the president should keep it in place because congress wants to fix it now. knowing what you do about how congress has performed this year, how much faith do you have they are going to take care of this? what else do they have to do coming up in september and october? how much faith do we have that they are going to do this? bret: what about this whole argument that this is a chip, madison, in the novitiate engine to recognize a whatever happens, he announces tuesday as part of that? i understand where people are coming from looking at this. when we look at the boardwalk specifically, that s what you do to prevent future illegal immigration. this is an issue of people who are already here and a lot of these are kids. like president trump said, they were brought over illegally as babies by their parents. they don t know anything else. some of them don t speak any other linkages but english. i think you have to have a big heart when dealing with this, but at the same time we have to be strong to prevent illegal immigration, prevent illegals coming in on our southern border. bret: how much does harvey change the political dynamic especially on this issue? on this issue? a little bit, we are the questions being asked. no, not to contradict byron here, i think this is something that congress could do. you ve got paul ryan, willing to do it. every single democrat in the house is going to vote for it. they could pass something like this through the house, i think, pretty likely given where the sentiment is. and then probably the same thing for the senate. this is something that could get done, even though to byron s point, all the republicans are on record saying that this is an abusive presenter power, they didn t agree with it in the first place. bret: we are going to head to the friday lightning round. we are monitoring this in texas, as the helicopter pulls out. this large plume of smoke, you can see how big it is. we are watching that plus the frighting lightning round coming out. comey, mueller i think the fbi director has really created, perhaps, some very serious legal problems for himself. he may have perjured himself when he said he made the conclusion after the interview because the evidence is showing to the contrary. bret: jason chaffetz talking about the rector comey, then fbi director. the republicans in the senate judiciary community saying that it appears that mr. comey would issue a statement exonerating secretary clinton. that s long before fbi agents finish their work. that s not a way to run an investigation, the fbi should be held to a higher standard than that. back to the panel, lightning round here. madison, we heard the sound earlier in the show that this is quite something. conclude now, investigate later? that s not just desperate to even think the outcome of the hillary clinton investigation was predetermined before key witnesses were interviewed for the majority of information was even gathered at all, that s insane. it really threatens the principles of how much the country was founded upon. this looks fishy from the start when comey exonerated hillary clinton right after the fourth of july weekend when she had been interviewed. but one of the biggest features of washington investigations is charges of making false statements. they almost always involve that. now we find out that they basically decided to close this case up before they even interviewed 17 people? it does look fixed. bret: and a lot of coverage of the new york times story about the president considering firing comey before he said he was ready to consider firing him. now a lot of coverage on this part? no. james comey was portrayed throughout this in the media as the stand-up guy, straight shooter. the more we learn he was either bungling it in real time as it was happening or not as much of a straight up guy as he s been portrayed. bret: senator menendez, democrat from new jersey in trial, a corruption trial that starts on tuesday. the judge, madison, saying he can t leave. we are a country of law and order. to think he get special treatment in the court because he s a senator is exactly on accessible. these are serious felony charge charges. what s funny is what the court said when they denied the motion, they said that the court will not serve as concierge to any party or lawyer. i like that. you have the senator, the court, the president. it s true. this is really politically charged because, one, you ve got a republican governor of new jersey, so at least until january. that means if menendez leaves office with a republican replacement, the fact that the senate is so close. if on the committees that the party balances are close, if a republicans lose a vote or two, democrats need everyone they ve got. senate map, a big deal here. winners and losers. j.j. watt, defensive lineman for the houston texans encouraging his 2.9 million followers to start giving money for hurricane relief. started with $100,000. a week later, crossed about an hour ago the $15 million mark. good on j.j. watts. loser? the media. hurricane coverage, this is what the media lives for. the coverage was good, toward a lot of uplifting and heart-wrenching stories about the resilience of the community. but the media always manages to overstep and they did with his obsession about melania trump s stiletto heels. writing in the washington post, the new york times fashion session, just a disaster. check fillet, everybody has seen that video. amazing rescue of grandparents down in texas. heartwarming and funny that his first thought was to go to chick-fil-a. bret: loser? kim jong un this week firing a ballistic missile over japan. he thought this was going to be his advantage. they could raise talks of the re-militarization of japan. this is something we haven t seen and could help china work with us. last time, i skipped by men but i now have time. here we go. winners, the rescuers of houston. we ve seen the incredible outpouring of heroes putting themselves in danger to save people. we should all be grateful for that. the loser is antifa.t they finally pushed it too far. they were attacking people who weren t so violin, nancy pelosi had to condemn them. the bret: when we come back, bret: when we come back, this week s notable quotables you won t see these folks at the post office. bret: when we come back, this week s notable quotables they have businesses to run. they have passions to pursue. how do they avoid trips to the post office? stamps.com mail letters, ship packages, all the services of the post office right on your computer. get a 4 week trial, plus $100 in extras including postage and a digital scale. go to stamps.com/tv and never go to the post office again. bret: finally tonight, hurricane harvey dominated the coverage this week here on special report. all across fox news and the news the universe. emotions ran high but no one could ignore that sense of unity, seeing these images and hearing stories of neighbors helping neighbors most in need. we are still breathing but it humbled us. if you are humbled by this, there s something wrong. how will congress step up and support the president on this? they are giving us physical street addresses. we cannot see the street addresses. just because the water receipts doesn t mean that all the problems are fixed. i don t typically ride with my pistol but i am right now. should i say missouri or missouri? they said whatever you want is okay. we are never out of him once in a generation opportunity to deliver real tax reform for everyday hard working americans. that s my daughter. she s waving. i knew she was here. i had not seen her. isn t that something? i can t say thank you enough. celebrities, kids with their lemonade stands. businesses. home is something that is so precious to people. the people that showed up i did not know who to call. i didn t know if it was going to be too late. days are dark but they are going to get better. bret: one week. thank you for inviting us into your homes tonight. that s it for this special report. fair, balanced, and still unafraid. we have things covered on all things harvey, all things daca. have a great labor day weekend. the story with this is a fox news alert. welcome to hannity. i m jeanine piro in tonight for sean. a houston area chemical plant explodes into flames yet again in texas as the rescue efforts and recovery efforts continue one week after hurricane harvey slammed into the lonestar state. the mayor is issuing a warning, they could see flooding for the next 10-15 days. plus, the president and first lady will travel to texas and louisiana tomorrow to visit hurricane victims. here s what president trump said
support. i think it s actually much better than the previous shot which was very sadly let down. again, we ve been hearing about repeal and replace for seven years. i thought i would go to the oval office, sit down at my desk, there d be a health care bill on my desk, to be honest. it hasn t worked out that way. i think a lot of republicans are embarrassed by it but i have to tell you i think they are going to do a great job. if this happens, it will be a good thing for the country. bret: chief congressional correspondent mike emanuel is live on capitol hill. good evening. aids to senate senate majority leader mitch mcconnell said he tends to bring the graham-cassidy built the floor next week. a race against the clock for votes is underway. i don t have any big announcement. that i can share with you. there is a lot of attention on alaska republican senator lisa murkowski. the bills lead sponsor says the time to attract democrats is over. there is zero possibility in a bipartisan manner to replace obamacare. i m not interested in continuing it. murkowski, john mccain, susan collins with the three republican senators who defeated health care form in july. within end of the month deadline to do this, pressure is building on undecided republicans. president trump is pressing them for a different outcome tweeting i hope republican senators will vote for graham-cassidy and fulfill their promise to repeal and replace obamacare. money directed states. because there are many concerns i have about the graham-cassidy proposal. they include the fact that they make fundamental changes in the medicaid program for the first time in more than 50 years. stick with the president is also pressuring the kentucky senator who says he has a no . rand paul is a friend of my but he is such a negative force when it comes to fixing health care. graham-cassidy bill is great. because this is not repealed. it s not what we promise. this is not the last chance. we ll have more opportunities. then there is the late-night attack from hollywood. your child with a pre-existing condition will get the care he needs if and only if his father is jimmy kimmel. otherwise you might be screwed. if he understands the bill, he s wrong. it will increase coverage and protect those with pre-existing conditions, particularly those states that don t have the benefit of medicaid expansion. talks in the senate between lamar alexander and patty murray broke down. they were trying to come up with a way to fix obamacare by the end of the month but alexander said they couldn t find consensus. it s unfortunate. we had a chance to do something important, historic, bipartisan. now we are moving toward another partisan approach. no cbo score, no hearings. the breakdown of the talks means the only option to address health insurance market issue short term will be graham-cassidy, trying to make it a binary choice between obamacare and a new plane. plan. bret: do you think republicans will repeal obamacare? let me know on twitter @bretbaier. use the hashtag #specialreport or on facebook at facebook.com/bretbaiersr. hurricane maria dropped to a category 2 storm but the damage has already been done in the caribbean, puerto rico is especially hard hit with virtually no electricity on the islands. steve harrigan is live in san juan. good evening. good evening, and grim and stunning situation here when you consider this island of 3.5 million people, a u.s. territory, it s virtually entirely without electricity. they have put in a curfew starting from right now until 6:00 a.m. that curfew is scheduled to go through saturday. there have been no reports of looting but certainly a potentially combustible situation where you have the entire island without power, no visible sign of police or guards on some people and very desperate situations with damaged houses and short on food and water. the situation here has develope developed. bret: that sometimes happens in the middle of storms. steve harrigan, the satellite dropping. we will head back to steve if we get him back. another natural disaster. rescue efforts continue among the ruins in central mexico. 225 people confirmed dead so fa far. yesterday 7.1 magnitude earthquake. she s correspondent jonathan hunt is in mexico city. bret, we are standing at one of the staging post for the hundreds of official rescue workers and the hundreds of civilian volunteers who are involved in what is a desperate operation now to find anybody who may have survived beneath the rubble of the 40 or so buildings that collapsed here in mexico city. they have gathered here. the bikes you see may look incongruous but they are often the quickest way to fury workers in and out of the rescue site. about half a mile in front of me is this school which collapsed. that s the focus of so many efforts here in mexico city right now. 30 children at least confirmed dead, and there could be up to another 30 underneath the rubble of the school. there is the hope, however faint it may be, that a couple of those children may have survived. that s why they are digging so desperately, so urgently to see if they can pull any of those children alive from the rubble. it s a similar scene around mexico city. we stopped at one building today on our way here to the school. it was a five-story apartment building. it s now pancake down into what would be about two stories. some 40 apartments in the building. a desperate search for survivors in one of the southern suburbs. in downtown mexico city, similar scenes playing out. president pena nieto says this remains at the moment a rescue operation and will remain so until the authorities are absolutely certain there is no possibility that anybody else could be alive. until that time, they will keep digging in the hopes they may pull out more survivors. the death toll officially as of tonight stands at 223. it seems inevitable that will go higher. president trump spoke with president pena nieto by telephone today. he extended condolences of the united states and offered whatever assistance the u.s. can give. there are american teams on the ground here, the los angeles county fire department has sent its urban search and rescue team. they are doing what they can to help the mexican people recover from what s obviously devastating 7.1 earthquake. bret: jonathan hunt live in mexico city. thank you. amazing to see the rescuers holding up their hands and tell everyone to be quiet as they listen for children s voices under that crushed school. we will follow the story. president trump says he s made up his mind about what to do about the iran nuclear deal. he s not telling. the tease comes as iran s president hits back at president trump s tough talk yesterday. john roberts is in new york. good evening. president trump has often been accused of having a thin skin but he clearly got under the skin of iran s president hassan rouhani with a scathing indictment of the iran s government yesterday and this threat to withdraw from the obama-era iran nuclear deal. president trump would not say what he will do but did say he has made a decision on whether to scrap the so-called jcpoa, the iran nuclear deal. i will let you know. as a candidate, president trump promised he would cancel the iran deal but his administration has recertified it twice. faces another 90 day renewal in october. in his speech to the united nations general assembly yesterday, the president ripped the agreement and seemed to suggest changes could be forthcoming. frankly that deal is an embarrassment to the united states, and i don t think you ve heard the last of it. believe me. iran s president hassan rouhani addressed the united nations today, insisting iran is living up to its side of the agreement, criticizing president trump as a neophyte on foreign policy. translator: it will be a great pity if this agreement were to be destroyed by rogue newcomers to the world of politics. the world will have lost a great opportunity. rouhani took the opportunity to respond to president trump s harsh assessment of iran as a corrupt dictatorship. ignorant, absurd, hateful rhetoric filled with ridiculous baseless allegations. bulgaria s president, a fan of president trump s election but who was also close to russia, urged iran. joint conference of plan. members of the president s administration, the secretary of state and national security advisor, are also urging the president not to scrap the agreement. an administration source tells fox news that doesn t mean the president can t take other actions against neuron such as tough new sanctions for its support of terrorism and other destabilizing activities. president trump also kept up the push for middle east peace, meeting with the palestinian president and jordan s king abdullah as he did with israel s prime minister yesterday. the president said he is trying hard to attain the self are unattainable. we had an important juncture. there is a small period of time and we are going to see we can do. that can be no promises obviously. so many people have talked about it and it s never happened. we are fighting very hard. president trump got some back up to the policies he articulated in the speech to the united nations general assembly yesterday from u.k. prime minister theresa may who, in her speech, urged the united nations to banded together to reign in north korea s nuclear program and in a shocker, threaten to withhold 30% of the u.k. s contribution to the u.n. unless the world body undertakes a much-needed reform. they want john roberts live in new york. south korean leaders are calling president trump s threat to destroy north korea of ferment concrete stance for peace and safety. that threat coming of north korea attacks. not everyone feels the same way. senior foreign affairs correspondent greg palkot reports from seoul. u.s. troops continue exercises in south korea. the region and the world are reeling from president trump s comments on tuesday that the u.s. would totally destroy north korea if it was forced to defend itself or its allies from kim jong un s nuclear weapons and missiles. allies were positive, south korea said it was a side of america s strong resolve. translator: i highly appreciated the position that all options are on the table. kim jong un s other neighbors were not so pleased. security council resolutions calling all parties to stay committed to peacefully resolving the korean peninsula issue through a political and diplomatic approach. we don t doubt the united states has the capacity to do something very destructive, but i paid attention to another part of the president s speech when he said he respects sovereignty and equality in international relations. asking if service members would be called on, the defense secretary weighed in. we continue to press on the diplomatic level, and that includes economic sanctions of course. at this time, we must also recognize the somber reality that military options must be available. in order to protect our allies and ourselves. some think north korea will be kept in mind by the president s. others think it will reject it or just be confused. may believe mr. trump is unpredictable. he s not ready to go to war or use force. you think they think he could be bluffing? caught in the middle are the residence. he has a good idea i think. you think he has a good idea? no. it will destroy everyone here in seoul and in korea probably. we just got our first response from north korea. it s not pretty. coming from the south korean news agency, they are quoting north korea s foreign minister who has arrived in new york for the u.n. sessions. he says, this is a quote the threat of president trump is the sound of a dog barking. the foreign minister is scheduled to speak on friday before the u.n. expect more of that. game on. bret. bret: always interesting responses. greg palkot in seoul. thanks. the president and his people say the u.s. has many military options to deal with north korea but shooting down a missile really one of them? national security correspondent jennifer griffin is that the pentagon. good evening. it s like shooting a bullet with another bullet. many question if they can. haven t shot them down because we can t shoot them down. especially the missiles that are going over japan or they are too high for our interceptors. and they would have to be aimed pretty much directly at the defensive systems in order for us to have a chance of engaging them. north korea fired a missile last week that flew 480 miles above japan but the missile interceptor did not reach that high. if the north korean missile were heading directly toward japan, that system may have worked in the terminal phase. but the u.s. could not have shot the missile down midflight. last week s missile flew over japan in 8 minutes. the air force general who oversees america s nukes says it s really a policy decision. there are technologies out there we could deploy. there is nothing that would do my heart anymore good then to drop a missile back on the person who launched it. ships would have to be almost up to the north korean coast, may be in north korean waters, to take a shot. this is a game of minutes. the detection, the initial detection of a launch, in terms of seconds. keeping in mind the entire flight time from north korea to the united states is well under an hour. the thaad missile defense system may give seoul a false sense of comfort. it can t protect all 25 million people. it s 48 interceptors are designed by time for a military response to an attack but could be easily overwhelmed by hundreds of north korean missiles. after president trump s speech yesterday, the pentagon expect more tests for more three or right now senior leaders tell me there are few good options to stop them. bret: jennifer griffin live at the pentagon. thank you. california s latest effort to try to stop president trump s border wall. that s live-stream your favorite sport at the airport. binge dvr d shows while painting your toes. on demand laughs during long bubble baths. tv on every screen is awesome. the xfinity stream app. all your tv at home. the most on demand your entire dvr. top networks. and live sports on the go. included with xfinity tv. xfinity, the future of awesome. bret: attorney general jeff sessions within california tonight, the state that is filing multiple lawsuits against the trump administration, including one to stop the border wall. william la jeunesse joins us live from the southern border. he spoke with the democratic state attorney general about the lawsuit as well as the issue of protecting the u.s. border. this is part of the wall, the fence. that s the whole ring. that s a lighthouse. that s the pacific ocean. california has filed multiple suits against the trump administration. the latest is to try to stop the extension of this fence going east towards arizona. the fence stretches about 700 miles. most was built without an environmental review. the president directed homeland security to replace and extend the barrier and fill some gaps. california says the feds need an environmental waiver. that is expired. they need a full impact statement which takes about five years to complete. opponents accuse the state of grandstanding. you could put the border wall up right now. the environmental rules be. the national security of the united states. california doesn t have the responsibility to protect the united states of america and the same way the federal government does. we can protect our borders. i believe we will be successful. we will not yield to those kind of political lawsuits. the attorney general was here to speak about another part of border security, drug interdiction. they helped locate about 500,00g from colombia. the bulk of the drugs come over the border. the attorney general says this is a work in progress. you want to talk about metrics. three years ago we were maybe stopping 10%. we have tripled it. that s only 30%. what does it take to get to 70, 80, 90%? resources. we have a high availability of drugs, low prices of drugs and greater purity of drugs. these three factors are bad for law enforcement. in 2005 congress gave the federal government broad authority to build the fence without environmental review. that was challenged, and the supreme court declined the case. it doesn t mean some federal judge might not hold up the construction of the wall for a period of time. bret: william la jeunesse along the southern border. thank you. health and human services secretary tom price is under fire tonight for some recent flying with a high price tag. a spokeswoman at hhs does not dispute a report in politico same price opted for more expensive chartered aircraft last week costing tens of thousands of dollars while other travel options appeared available. his predecessors have flown commercial. hhs spokeswoman says price tries to fly commercial whenever possible but that commercial airlines are not always feasible. adding prices putting a priority on traveling outside washington to meet with the american peopl people. she adds the travel department checks every possible source for travel needs. imagine losing your vehicle because you had a handful of bullets in your possession. it really happened to one man, and it s driving the push for major changes in asset forfeiture laws. doug mckelway has the story. two years ago, kentucky farmer and onetime g.o.p. statehouse candidate serrano was driving his new ford f2 50 truck to visit relatives in mexico. customs agents halted him, demanded his cell phone, asking why are you taking pictures. i wanted the opening of the bridge. i was going to take the opening of the bridge, the entrance of the bridge. that s all i wanted to do. they searched his truck and found five bullets that he forgot to remove. he is a concealed carry permit holder. he was detained but never arrested. customs seized his truck, telling his attorneys it was subject to the government civil asset forfeiture program because it was used to transport munitions of war. two years later, they still have it. i m making payments of $673 a month. the program dates back to english law that american colonists rebelled against. codified in the fourth amendment prohibitions against unreasonable searches and seizures. forfeiture was revived in the 1930s era prohibition and again in the 1980s war on drugs. continues on to this day. it s astonishing that civil forfeiture as a policy we have in this country. it s totally unjust. it s unfair, and i think it s unconstitutional. the police just take it and say you prove to us this is ist drug money. one of the cash seizures i had had plans for a methamphetamine laboratory. they had documented intelligence. laypeople selling cocaine, people involved in cartel activity. many contend the program s abuses outweigh the benefits. critics were outraged this summer when jeff sessions ended obama era restrictions that blocked forfeiture without a warrant for criminal charges. this month and a rare show of bipartisanship, conservative republicans join democrats to rollback sessions undoing of the obama-era reforms. asset forfeiture is a crime against the american people committed by their own government. in practice and principle, forfeiture is a violation of the fourth amendment. the senate is poised to act but many say what s needed is a supreme court test case. mr. serrano is suing customs to get the truck back in and the policy of civil forfeiture once and for all. bret: thank you. up next, why the incumbent senator from alabama is having such a tough time winning his own party s nomination. here s what some of our fox affiliates are covering. fox 43 in harrisburg. pennsylvania s credit rating was downgraded by standard & poor s. it cites the state s deficit and history of late budgets and making the decision. the downgrade comes as lawmakers argue over how to resolve a roughly $2 billion deficit. fox 7 in austin. the texas house speaker calling for the removal of a plaque at the state capital honoring the confederacy. the republicans has the text on the plaque is not accurate. it advocates teaching that the civil war is not a rebellion and that slavery was not the underlying cause. live look from new york from our affiliate fox 5. one of the stories there tonight. federal prosecutors asking the judge to sentence anthony weiner to around two years in prison for engaging in illicit text messaging with a 15-year-old girl. prosecutors filed papers urging the judge to send a message at anthony weiner s sentencing on monday. that s the live look outside the beltway from special report. we ll be right bret: where less than a week away from alabama s republican senate runoff. it s turning out to be a close race and more divisive than anyone anticipated. correspondent jonathan serrie shows us from alabama. the red-hot senate races bringing out the big guns. president trump and vice president pence both announcing visits to the state to stump for luther strange. i only met mitch mcconnell a few months ago but that were relationship, working relationship with me in a unique position in washington. strange, pointed to fill the seat when jeff sessions became attorney general, considered a g.o.p. establishment favorite. if strange wins, it s a feather in trump s cap but a bigger feather in mitch mcconnell s cap. spending by the senate majority leader super pac has topped $4.7 million. luther strange fights for our conservative values every day. the moore campaign is fighting back with an antiestablishment message. drain the swamp. send mcconnell a message. roy moore. here, the seat of the county which trump won with nearly 90% of the vote, people are genuinely excited about his upcoming visit to alabama. residents we spoke with say the president s endorsement in the u.s. senate race is unlikely to sway their vote. i like trump, but i am not voting for strange. i like his christian values, roy. and i think that s what this country needs. a favorite among christian conservatives, roy moore, a populist and defender of the constitution enjoys the support of mo brooks and former trump advisor steve bannon. i think people know me. they know i am not running against donald trump. i have supported things donald trump stands for. the winner of next tuesday s primary runoff is favored to win back the december general election in this solidly red state. the battle is not so much between republican and democrat as it is between the various factions of the president s supporters. bret: more on the race with the paddle. candidates for governor in virginia are sparring over the economy and the confederacy. one of the gubernatorial general elections this fall. allison barber looks at that race tonight. the two candidates running for virginia governor squared off at a televised debate. on the left, ralph northam. pediatric neurologist who once served in the army. on the right, ed gillespie, former chair of the rnc, counselor to president george w. bush and launched an unsuccessful bid for senate seat in 2014. the race is close with gillespie trailing northam. the leader of glaspie s party is not particularly popular among virginia voters. 53% say they disapprove of the job president trump is doing. 74% say the president is not a factor in their vote from governor. it s a little bit surprising. i think the polling result provides a lesson for the continuation of this campaign for the northam campaign. if he s the focus so heavily on the trump administration trying to tie ed gillespie to donald trump, it appears that s just not going to be enough to get him the governorship. in the subject of president trump came up. if i could talk about some policies. gillespie pivoted. he could say i am nancy pelosi and i could say he s donald trump and we could have that debate but it s not going to get another job created. the focused it on other topics like the economy and confederate monuments. my view is the statutes should remain and we should place them in historical context. personally i think the statues will be better placed in museums with historical context. i am leaving that up to the localities. the current given her governor of virginia is a democrat and overall voters are pretty happy with the way things are. two-thirds said they are satisfied with the direction of the state. bret: thank you. federal reserve policymakers say they will probably raise interest rates one more time this year. the revising their projection for economic growth for 2017. from 2.2% to 2.4. they are cutting their inflation prediction from 2% by the end of next year to 1.9. markets finished mixed. dow up 42. s&p 500 gained 2. nasdaq lost 5. can republicans finally repeal obamacare and what is in the bill? we will analyze the chances and the substance with the panel when we come back. the vast majority of republican governors are on board. they want the money. they want to get health care out of washington. i characterized the bill as shift and shaft. they like the fact that people are paying attention to hurricanes and earthquakes in daca and that they might be able to speak this buy. he said he wants coverage for all, no discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, lower premiums for middle-class families had no lifetime caps. the new bill does none of those things. he s wrong. it will increase coverage and protect those with pre-existing conditions. it specifically says that there is adequate and affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. bret: this is the battle going on on capitol hill now. the latest effort to repeal obamacare with this cassidy-graham bell. senate majority leader s office is saying he will bring it to the floor. here s what s in it. block grant obamacare subsidies and medicaid expansion to the states. repeal obamacare individual and employer mandates. repeal the obamacare medical device tax. strengthen the ability for states to waive obamacare regulations. protect patients with pre-existing medical conditions. that obviously was a lot of the focus of the criticism today. let s bring in the panel. stephen hayes, editor-in-chief of the weekly standard. mollie hemingway, senior editor at the federalist and charles lane, opening writer for the washington post. let s talk about the substance. what this bill does and what he doesn t do. this bill does not repeal and replace obamacare. it keeps most obamacare taxes and spending but block grants to states after 2020. the main selling point is flexibility. lindsey graham making the argument that states are going to be able to do they want, they can experiment in the manner they want. if blue states want to move toward single-payer, they can do that with their obamacare dollars. if red states want to move to more market-based reforms, they can do that. bret: the ultimate federalism. the strongest argument in favor of the bill. leave it to nancy pelosi when there are plenty of criticisms democrats could offer to mischaracterize why republicans are doing this when and how they are doing it. it has nothing to do with hurricanes and sneaking it through. it has everything to do with the fact that republicans can t do this via reconciliation after september 30. bret: the federalist will probably say it s not the ultimate federalism. that s the big argument. it allows flexibility in the states. they can do they want. you can see which ideas work better. there s a little bit of an inherent bias cooked in. if you want to move towards single-payer you don t need a waiver from hhs. if you want to test out market reforms, you do need a waiver. with that being the case and the need for the changes to be taken place pretty quickly within 18 or 24 months, you might see a rush toward the easier to accomplish changes, move toward more single-payer as opposed to getting a real chance to try out some of these more exciting market-based reforms. bret: the biggest criticism is the pre-existing conditions would be left up to the states. cassidy points out that if the state wants to change, it must establish there is adequate and affordable coverage for those with pre-existing conditions. everything will end up depending on what hhs determines adequate and affordable coverag coverage. the argument would be the obamacare regulations are much more rigid. less wiggle room. there is another wrinkle which is some of the blue states senators are pointing out that under the funding formula lindsey graham has worked out, there medicaid would be a little bit less generous. red states would go up. i think that s a sweetener lindsey graham put imprecisely for some of those red states which is maybe why some of their governors are on board. you have governors, and it s important to note the republican states that have expanded medicaid or nervous about what this would mean. talking about nevada, ohio. they would be pressuring their senators. because of the way the money works out, they are going to be pressuring their senators to make sure at the least their state doesn t end up with less money they have now. bret: there is a sense of optimism or at least increasing optimism on the hill about the numbers. they are still not there. we ve been down this road before. i think we might characterize it as forest optimism. there is nowhere else to go. this is still a bank shot. i think you talked to republicans and they will say we feel solid with 46, 46, 48 vote. rand paul is a most certainly a no. susan collins sounds like a no. dean heller, who had opposed some of the earlier reforms is a cosponsor of the measure. but lisa murkowski, rob portman, shelley moore capito, senators like that are up in the air. john mccain who had given some signal he might be in favor of it, it s a bill that s proposed by one of his very .. he made to oppose the earlier attempts at reform, that he wants it done through regular order. it s not going to be. i think it s a very dicey proposition for this to pass in the optimism, it s cute but i m not sure it means it s going to pass. through on the other stipulation that arizona governer ducey is behind it. mollie, you re counting heads. i think more optimistic than steve. rand paul apparently is the only republican who meant it when he said we are going to repeal obamacare. he s not supporting it because it does not repeal obamacare. i think anyone else other than susan collins, everything evers pretty flexible. there is a lock to sweeten the deal. bret: i have seen a lot of interviews with senator paul and he voted for the skinny repeal but yet he s not voting for this. this skinny repeal was not repealing obamacare either. it gave a pathway toward repeal and it was a move toward, the republicans have been claiming for years they re going to repeal obamacare. replaced isn t part of it. at least there was something to that bill, some movement that could be made in ground on which you would claim to keep going. republicans weren t telling the truth when they said they were going to repeal obamacare so the question becomes what s the best way to have government handling these things. for a lot of conservatives, block grants are the way to go. bret: the namesake of the law, the former president. when i see people trying to undo the hard-won progress for the 50th or 60th time, it is aggravating. it frustrates. and it s frustrating to have to mobilize every couple months to keep our leaders from inflicting real human suffering on our constituents. bret: of course he doesn t talk about the fact that the law itself is imploding and a lot of these states. because some of us don t think it is imploding and a lot of states and the defects have been exaggerated. without a cbo score. i recall john mccain saying he wanted regular order and bipartisanship. something that s being left out is the bipartisan effort that was going between lamar alexander and patty murray. that seems to be over. it will be interesting whether lamar alexander can be brought on board for this bill, given his position on that one. bret: if you talked with state that is seen premiums go up 125%, you don t think that s we are talking about the premiums increasing on the individual market and major coverage advances through medicaid expansion which is what this targets. of course obamacare is not perfect. massive overspending. rand paul voted for a bill that was 100% of obamacare funding. this keeps 90% of obamacare funding and he opposes it. he s got some explaining to do. bret: tough political races in alabama and virginia. the one who will be in the building from the great state of alabama in the u.s. senate? that is what a g.o.p. primary senate runoff is all about. roy roy moore, luther strange. president trump supporting luther strange, tweeting just in the past minute alabama is so lucky to have a candidate like big luther strange. smart, tough on crime, borders and trade. loves the vets and military. president is heading down on friday. the polls in alabama, roy moore and luther strange at 35.4. molly, this is something. i think a lot of people think this has a lot to do with donald trump supporting one candidate over the other but i think people are forgetting how much fatigue and anger there is over the governor bentley situation. he had an affair with a staffer and used government resources to cover it up. people feel luther strange with two involved with that. he promised he would investigate bentley. no investigation happen. i think that s a more telling issue dividing people. donald trump coming into campaign for him will probably be huge. he is well loved. we will see what happens. bret: it s kind of look at the bannon versus the other part of the party. sebastian gorka, sarah palin doing an event for roy moore and the president and vice president doing an event for luther strange. has donald trump become establishment? i think mollie is right. local dynamics are going to mean more than the national dynamics but it s been fascinating to watch the primary unfold. you ve had three candidates making the argument alabama voters they are more like donald trump. they are closer to donald trump and they will be more faithful to the agenda. mitch mcconnell who s been at odds with donald trump on several things as of late, ran ads in favor of luther strange. making the argument he would be more supportive of donald trump than mo brooks or roy moore. roy moore could lose in a general election and he could win. and away we shouldn t be too surprised this is happening. there is some precedent in past election cycles on the republican side. very passionate, out there kind of very conservative primary candidates capturing the imagination of their local electorate. christine o donnell in delaware. and it drives the establishment crazy. what he demonstrates is in politics, and low turnout elections, off years, a guy who has the excitement in the movement behind him, and roy moore does. roy moore has his people. this stands on the ten commandments impresses folks in alabama. there are a lot of republicans who are in the voting booth every time to send a message to their party establishment. that s who he s attracting. bret: it s so interesting to add the trump dynamic. drain the swamp and how that fits. mollie, the average in virginia. the governor s race. ralph northam and ed gillespie, the republican. northam appears to have a lead here but this is a purple state and it s going to be an interesting race. speak of the fate you ve seen republicans polling poorly to fy are at nearly a tie. the fact that gillespie is close is making people attention. he has great name recognition. the guy is running against is not very well-known. on the issues, ed gillespie is a northern virginia republican. usually you get the republicans from deeper in the state and the democrats running from northern virginia. he s a northern virginia guy, friendly with business. bret: he almost won the senate seat. when we come back, a police officer on the beat starts bret: finally tonight, a wisconsin police officer stone restaurant customers when he decided to take over for the band there. bret: officer jonathan landis had been patrolling on foot nearby. he says he s been playing violent since he was three. he used to work as a professional musician and teacher before joining the police department. he says he found the restaurant after hearing a violin in the distance and then he filed them. imagine that! nice job! thanks for inviting us into your home tonight, that s it for this special report. fair, balanced and still unafraid. no online show tonight, we will heather: thursday, september 21st, iran threatening to raise the stakes to nuclear levels as the obama era nuclear deal the president has been quite clear and articulate as to his concerns about the agreement itself. donald trump now ready to take action, we are live in washington. we will do it the right way, the president throwing his support behind the new bid to repeal obamacare. if it passes how will the healthcare system change? we are breaking all of this down. oh my goodness. or in your home plate. a toddler hit in the face by a 105 mile-per-hour foul ball. one of the most storied franchises in major league baseball demanding change. rob: live look at midtown manhattan, you are watching fox and friends first on thursday morning. heather: another busy one on tap. a brand-new threat from iran, the nuclear deal begins to unravel. donald trump has not announced whether the us will the agreement. rob: the president will focus on escalating tension and the mess with north korea as it meets with leaders of japan and south korea. heather: the latest developments from dc. reporter: donald trump