NEW YORK (CBSNews) — “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson will discuss predictions for 2017 with a panel of CBS News correspondents in a segment that will air Sunday (Dec. 25).
CBS News Justice and Homeland Security Correspondent Jeff Pegues said that he predicts FBI Director James Comey will stay in his job despite the blowback he received from how he handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails and the last-minute discovery of related emails a week before the election.
“There are a lot of people in Washington who might disagree with that. But I talked to sources who say that he’s spoken in groups of retired agents and he’s been very comfortable there. And he’s defended his decision as something that he had to do given the cards that he was dealt. So I think he stays at the F.B.I,” Pegues said.
President Obama nominated Comey in 2013 to lead the FBI and the Senate confirmed him for a full 10-year term.
CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin predicts that President-elect Donald Trump will meet with the leader of North Korea.
“I will predict that he will meet personally with Kim Jong-un and the leader of North Korea and attempt to cut a deal that would somehow at least freeze the North Korean nuclear weapons program,” he said.
CBS News Foreign Affairs Correspondent Margaret Brennan also predicts “frequent confrontation” under a Trump administration involving pushing the limits of Iran’s nuclear program and with North Korea, which she said is scheduled for another missile test soon.
CBS News chief White House Correspondent Major Garrett predicts Vice President-elect Mike Pence will be a powerful figure in the new administration.
“A year from now we will be writing about Vice President Mike Pence, the most important person in the Trump administration because at every personnel level, at every turn, he will have won more than he’s lost. And whatever the ideology of President Trump, the personnel implementing it will be at almost every vital turn selected, vetted and recommended by Mike Pence. And in more ways than Dick Cheney, a very powerful vice president,” he said.
For Democrats, CBS News Congressional Correspondent Nancy Cordes predicts they will redesign their strategy so they’re able to reach out more to white working class voters.
“I think by the end of the year you will see a new Democratic organization that does not currently exist, designed to try to reach some of these white working class voters that the Clinton campaign wasn’t able to reach in 2016,” Cordes said. “You’ve got a number of high-ranking Clinton campaign officials who thought they were going to spend the next four years very busy at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue now looking for a new purpose.”
CBS News Chief Legal Correspondent Jan Crawford made a prediction about the battle to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the late Justice Antonin Scalia.
“I think that the Supreme Court confirmation fight is going to be the biggest battle that we will see. I think it’s going to be a place for Democrats to kind of put all their pent up rage and frustration at what happened in November. You’re going to see a real effort to block President Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court. My prediction is that will fail,” she said.
