captioning sponsored by cbs today on "face the nation", holiday traditions new and old. 2016 has been a year of surprises and shocks, tragedy and terror. and there has been plenty of anger and sadness. but there is also hope and good news. in a new "face the nation" tradition we once again look over the year past and the year to come with stephen colbert. then we turn to a cbs news tradition that is 66 years old, the year fend correspondent round table. the faces have changed since then, the news moves at a faster pace, but the reporters of the washington bureau still cover it all. it is all ahead on this special holiday broadcast of "face the nation". happy holidays and welcome to "face the nation", i am john

dickerson, for our holiday broadcast last year we sat down with the host of the late show stephen colbert, the response was so positive we thought we would do it again. so what was the good news in 2016? >> >> that's a tough one. that's a tough one. we just had a bunch of people over for thanksgiving and before i give a blessing, you know, for all of the food we are about to eat beforehand, what can i be thankful for? and i was the really reminded of how our happiness really comes from our individual relationships. a nation is not its politics. a nation is its relationships between people, and i was thankful for the people in the room, i was thankful for the people tha that were not there d couldn't be there because they were gone and thankful for the children who were growing up beautifully into people that i would want to be with and could entrust our country to.

and for the people that i don't agree with. you know, politically, i am thankful for them as well. so because -- >> dickerson: why are you thankful for the people you don't agree with. >> because they make me think about what i do and question my belief and an unquestioned belief is almost vestigial it doesn't motivate you in any way if you don't question it because a belief is a filter you have do run things through it and so you know how you see the world. it is a lens, it is not a prop. so the good news is, we are all still here, america is a great country, it is all just relationships that we have with each other. that's important thing and that's the good news is our ability to love each other and care for each other and i saw that all through the year. >> dickerson: to the question, so the question is whether that itself is a beneficial outcome of an election that got a lot of people nervous. it sharpens the thinking and forces to think about other things in your life between politics.

and politics is not everything. dividing into teams is great if you win but if your team loses it allows you to do two things. a, question why you lost. and b, why did you choose to be on a team? because the team itself is an illusion. and so that was something that i came to -- that came to me at the end of the election special we did. we did a live show time special and i had nothing to say. i didn't think at the end of the show. >> dickerson: at what point in the night is it when you feel i have nothing to say. what happened? do you know the outcome? >> as soon as i knew outcome i knew i would have to throw out everything i planned because we had four possible out comes one is that we knew mrs. clinton would win. we would not know. it looked like trump was going to win but wouldn't know until the morning and then there was oh he is going to win and we know he is going to win. and that was the one that we prepared nothing for.

which, on purpose, i said look what is the purpose? don't prepare anything because everything goes out the window, it is the least likely path, say all of the number crumpers and nibble numbers. and if it happens, we are going to be doing a show for a group of people who have been held into a soccer stadium, who are going to be very impressed, at the end of the thing one of the things that occurred to say is it makes me question picking sides, because if you look at this like a sport, if you look at it like a battle against your neighbor, you will choose anything as a knife against the other side, and that itself is -- it is the absence of sarah chew, the absence of virtue is a vice, yes, that is vice, political divisiveness is a vice

but like a lot of vices it is super seductive so you indulge in it until it bites you and then you go, oh, darn. oh, darn. this is death and it makes you question having indulged in a vice and i think that political device stiffness is a vice, picking sides is a vice rather than picking ideas. >> dickerson: is that a lesson learned in the moment or is that how we should look at 2017? >> definitely a lesson you can learn in the moment, but, boy, it is hard to stay alert to that. especially with what i do for a living. i make jokes, and jokes -- i mean, what does it mean to you? >> dickerson: so if i learned a similar lesson is that you saw corrosiveness everywhere. >> you go out and talk to people in the country, everybody is worried about their kids and whether they can two to college or the next illness that their

family member may have f regardless of what their parties are, and then the political conversation forces everybody back into their corners. so to seek out humanity is the -- is and why things are important to human beings, not just the game. as you said it is hard to stay alert to that constantly. post truth is the word of the year. >> dickerson: i heard that, yes. so when we were last together and we talked. >> at dinner. >> dickerson: i meant a year ago. >> okay. >> dickerson: a year ago when we talked, you said i said what does the election look like for you and you said it is all up -- anything goes. >> i think i was right. >> dickerson: yes. >> anything goes, hearing nostradamus, the eagle shall fight the lion upon the plain near the river of kesh.

the year, we saw facts play, although we never saw them in a play -- it is not like many years ago i coined this word called truth thinkness, 32 truth-yness, i am starting to believe what -- rather than what you know the facts to be it is very important to say you know the facts to be and there is post truth which is not associated with the facts, as a matter of fact, one of trump's surrogates, scott 0 hughes said facts don't matter anymore. there are no facts. that's truly in a whole new world. that is before god said let there be light. that is absolute chaos. and that scares me, the idea that facts don't exist anymore is actually a scary to me, because if there are no facts anymore, then there is nothing to agree upon, and so if you

can't agree you can't build anything. >> dickerson: you have to agree on a measurement of things if you building. >> what is one kilo, 1 cubit. >> exactly. >> dickerson: you said don't get your news from me. >> i said get it from john dickerson. >> dickerson: thank you. i was fishing there and that was very good. >> that was the "wall street journal". >> or something else. >> definitely don't get your facts from me. >> dickerson: and people are tuning in to you, why not get a few facts from you? >> because there are better sources than i am. i am just reading other things. we try to do jokes that are based on actual facts because then you can build on them. the great thing about doing jokes about a presidential campaign is that from the convention to election day, the job gets easier, because there is one-story everybody cares about it and nobody dies, so it is not tragic, you make jokes about it, you don't have to explain it to the audience and everybody is ready for the punch

line as soon as you get out there, and so that is a gift, covering a campaign and then the more you get away from a centralized news story, in the cycle the more you have to explain things to the audience and it is more important that you get the facts right. >> dickerson: and tell me about writing jokes about donald trump. >> that is not a question. that is -- that is tell me -- i will not tell you. i will not tell you. >> how do you write jokes about donald trump? >> there you go. first of all -- you demand your writers to write jokes about it. how do you tell jokes about 0 donald trump, how do you write jokes about anything? and a lot of times, and this is where the conversation gets super boring, because there is nothing more boring than explaining a joke is that there is something someone says and then there is the way they

behave, and inbetween, in that arc is where all the satire lives or the sub version, like those two -- that little arc in there and the closer somebody is to the way they behave, the less fun they are. to write jokes about. but donald trump speaks one way and behaves in another, you know. it is not even 180 degrees, there is some odd oblique angle going on with him. >> along with donald trump's critics, there are democrats who feel upset one, kind of a kind of meaner humor. is there -- is there a pitch you don't want to swing at when writing jokes about donald trump? >> that is an interesting question because, boy, the balls come over the plate with him like shotgun pellets, it is not like one pitch at a time, you look at what happened, which balls will we swing at, what he is talking about or who he is taking it to and over what time and over twitter, and i think gingrich called it like, you get

the press chasing the rabbit, where do you stand? you are in the batters box, which ones do you want to swing at? one thing i had to say the week after mr. trump was elected is to say, you have a four-year story to tell, don't try to tell it all today. tell what happened today with jokes. so there is a very long way of saying, is there a pitch i don't want to swing at? the one that is not being thrown. >> dickerson: that was almost zen. >> well, that's how good i am, john. >> dickerson: you talk about reflecting america and where america is. one of the things that we go is have focus groups. we have done them in "face the nation" you had to do a focus group that we do what would you ask people? >> i would say what is the most helpful, what makes you most hopeful? what makes you most heapful, because slightly less than half of the voters vote ford 43 elect, but it is statistically

half of america, and i want to know what makes them most hopeful and keep that in mind as we go forward, okay, did the person fulfill that hope? >> what did you learn about interviewing this year? >> don't hold a pen. because i am not a newsman. i was -- i forgot who i was interviewing and the challenge for me and maybe the motivation for your question is, i used to do the show -- i used to -- character and i had an agenda, i was going to win the interview, and it was fun to win it. now myself, i am responsible for what i am saying and that made me sort of pull my natural punch in interviews for the first probably six months of the show. and my producers came out to me and said, it was between two actors, put your pen away. and i said, okay. so i put the pen away and it changed the way i spoke to a person, because then i had a conversation with someone, but

holding the pen is like i am keeping score of what they are saying and it became a human conversation. it really worked. because you are not news, you are not even parroting the news, put it down. >> dickerson: that has a larger meaning somehow. the. >> it does. really just be yourself. the pen was the last bit of the armor. yeah. so -- >> dickerson: if you had to do "face the nation", how would you do the show? >> just like you. no. i watch it every sunday. you get something extra in your pay packet because of that. >> dickerson: thank you very much. what did you learn about the show. >> we did two live weeks for the convention and we do all of the debates live and election live. i was reminded of how important urgency is in writing, and it is not the same thing as anxiety, there is a fine line between anxiety and urgency. you know there probably won't be another draft of this. something clicks inside of you, if you have enough experience to do it, and it is not for the

faint of heart. you write it right the first time, the joke comes out of you the way you are going to say it. you don't over think it and we -- we wrote some of our best shows this year in a matter of a couple of hours or sometimes like 45 minutes or half an hour, every, everyone steps up and that's what a life show does, it asks what is the most you are capable of and it gives you something that is worthy of that effort, which is you are making jokes live about a his, historical event. >> dickerson: if people take three things from this year that gave you joy, they could be anything, what would they be? >> i spent so much of my time inside this building working on the show it is hard to divorce my joy from things that happened this year. that is where -- you can put that on the list. too oh, i think the night before the election, we had stevie wonder on and jon stewart and basically did a song -- the vote with munoz from hamilton and we

have the same birthday and he sang to me happy birthday to you. and that is probably the most joyful thing that happened in this building this year because there is nobody like stevie wonder. oh, i don't know. taking my son to college. that is pretty joyful. he seemed happy there. that was really joyful. because you worry, you know. spoiler alert if you don't have children yet you will worry. and that is good too. and i have a dear friend that i love who was diagnosed with cancer and when she got subsequent tests back it was exactly what you wanted to hear, treatable. she has a plan and that was most joyful moment and i just found out a week ago, the most joyful moment you could hear is that

this person you love will be with you so you can love them. that's it. >> dickerson: we will be back in one minute with more of our interview with "the late show"'s stephen colbert. per roll more "doing chores for dad" per roll more "earning something you love" per roll bounty is more absorbent,

so the roll can last 50% longer than the leading ordinary brand. so you get more "life" per roll. bounty, the quicker picker upper >> dickerson:. >> and we are back with more of our wide-ranging interview with "the late show"'s stephen colbert. what should donald trump read if you gave him one thing he should read before being president? >> well the constitution wouldn't hurt, because i am not sure if he is as familiar with it as one would hope:it is well thought out. that is a good question. what would donald trump read? because you don't know what he is lacking in information. i mean, if you were to believe his ghostwriter he might want to the read art hoof the deal because he said, he didn't write a word of it so it is possible he hasn't read it either. i have. i have read art of the deal.

have you read art of the deal. >> dickerson: yes. i have. what did you get out of it. >> that he can be friends with anybody. >> he comes off as a very friendly guy, even people he is angry with he is very friendly with. and struck with the stories of the people are stories about being generous and magnanimous and keeping the deal when there is a better of the deal in the party. ideals he instilled with others -- >> we had our disagreements over the years but we did this deal, given that you and he have had disagreements would he come on the show with you and interview? >> i am not going to say no to the president of the united states. i would want to knowed i could interview him in a way that would be respectful though because i don't think it would be fun for me or profitable for him in any way or the audience if i couldn't do it in a respectful way and i think -- i think probably by the time he gets in office i will have calmed down a little bit, because it is important to me, because i believe in the presidency and i believe in our

system and, you know, i had him on in the beginning of the year, i went to great pains to try to be respectful to him which really upset some of my liberal fans but it is important to me to have a politician on to allow them to say what their thoughts are and not be some sort of, you know -- where people often wanted me to be in the show which is some sort of ninja word assassin which slips everybody, under everybody's radar and slaps the handle on the knife before they know it is between their ribs, that's sort of the legend of -- i almost never did it, it was almost by accident when i would do it and i don't really want to do that with my guests ever. >> dickerson: what are you looking forward to in the new year? >> we are so busy with the election i think i am actually going to lose weight over the christmas holidays, because just the 0 cortisol will eat my body and just getting enough sleep i

think i is think is at least gog to get my down to my fat pants. your fat pants, i can't do the show in sweat pants, i don't think that would look good. what am i looking forward to? i am looking forward to be surprising because that's what you want every day, i want to be surprised and that's the great thing about donald trump is boy he did surprise a lot of people, didn't he? and every day you would say can you believe this happened and then you go get to tell that story to the audience and mr. trump is such a large figure that he will continue to be, i think, the story that we can tell the jokes on a daily basis because he keeps breaking the rules, or norms, not rules, he keeps on breaking norms, and the breaking of those norms is such a surprising thing that it is like a firecracker every day and you get to report on the sound of that firecracker every day. you know, people asked me before aren't you a little glad donald trump was elected? and it is like yeah but as a

comedian sure but i value something more than a joke i am about to tell but now i have no choice, but to actually enjoy this incredible gift every day that mr. trump will be. >> dickerson: i am going on in half an hour as you, what do i have to know? >> teach me everything. >> do you know how to listen? you are the. >> dickerson: you are the better judge of that than i am. >> you have to learn how to listen to your guests because in half an hour -- you go from zero to 60, like you are dragged off the street, a bag was popped over your head and brought in backstage, they put you in make-up and whipped it off your head and said you are on in half an hour, and what am i doing? well, you are going to -- i hope you were informed about the news of the day, which i imagine that you are under, you being john dickerson you have that john dickerson family. and you have to be able to read,

because you are reading off of a prompter. you have to be able to improvise because if a joke goes particularly well you want to fill the back end of it. you have to be happy with sailing. you have to know how to still enjoy if the joke doesn't go over well and also be prepared to not blame anybody other than yourself for whether it goes well, because, because really it is just you. you are it. tag, you're it, you know. into. >> you know what? can i go back to something that trump should read? this is my answer to what trump should read. i don't know about what book he should read but he should definitely read the plaque that says the buck stops here. because he is famous for blaming other people for something going wrong. that is over. the buck stops at that desk and i hope he has read it because the first time he blames somebody else -- the first times

he blames somebody else for something he did, i think even people who like him will lose faith. because however you feel about the president you have to take the punch. >> dickerson: thank you. >> thanks. >> dickerson: i am going to shake your hand. >> you are going to shake my hand? >> dickerson: yes. it feels weird. >> i used to do that all the time. >> dickerson: there. >> you don't know where the hand has been. >> dickerson: it is like we just met. i have known you for years. who is this person? there is a lot more of this interview that will be available on our website facethenation.com. in fact, there is so much more than we are going to release a new clip every day for the next seven days, just enough to make it through the holiday week. so for our seven days with stephen colbert go to our website or twitter or facebook for those clips. why is it all (mimics a stomach grumble) no more questions for you!

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>> dickerson: be sure to join us next sunday when we will be talking about the challenges facing america with a book panel, including isabel wilkerson who wrote the warmth of other suns, jd vance, author of hillbilly elegy, diane guerrero, author of in the country we love and author of muslim girl, a coming of age. 316, please, thank you. after careful consideration of your application, it is with great pleasure that we offer our congratulations on your acceptance..." through the tuition assistance program, every day mcdonald's helps more people go to college. it's part of our commitment to being america's best first job. ♪ pain from a headache whecan make this...d,

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>> dickerson: some of our cbs stations are leaving us now but for most of you we will be right back with a lot more "face the nation" and our favorite old tradition, the cbs news correspondence round table. stay with us.

>> dickerson: welcome back to "face the nation", i a -- i am john dickerson, joining us now to talk about the year ahead is foreign correspondence margaret brennan, chief white house correspondence major garrett, homeland security and justice department correspondent jeff pegues and our chief legal correspondent jan crawford, national security correspondent david martin and congressional correspondent nancy cordes, welcome to all of you, to our thanksgiving dinner here, major i want to start with you, thanksgiving on christmas, you spent the year with donald trump. what do you expect from donald trump right away? >> so the country better brace itself for a couple of political realities. first of all you have a largely nonideological president surrounding himself by conservative idealogues and the largest republican majority a conservative oriented republican president has had since before the great depression.

this trump administration will have a largely cooperative republican congress and they will move with at as much speed as they possibly can, understanding the democrats are still in disarray, the democrats are going to have to pick their targets, they are going to create as many targets as possible for the democrats, hoping to overwhelm them and move both on a regulatory, executive action and legislative front and throw in a supreme court nominee, all right out of the gate a, an amazing sort of action to push forward an agenda they hope will be, if not fully realized, nearly fully realized by august, and then sit back and watch what happens. >> dickerson: nancy, a flurry of activity, it is a dream come true for paul ryan, speaker of the house it sounds like. >> it really is and a dream that started far before he became speaker, and so when you have got a big prize like this, many prizes, they hope sitting on the table you are willing to overlook a lot so a lot of the things you heard paul ryan

criticizing donald trump for during the primaries you won't hear over the next few months. he is going to try to stay as silent as possible. he needs donald trump and donald trump needs him. first thing right out of the gate repealing obamacare, republicans will try to do that in the first few weeks of the new congress. the big question becomes, what then? they know they want to replace it with something, but there is absolutely no consensus on what that something is. >> dickerson: david, let me ask you a question, one of the things that donald trump promised and it seems paul ryan will help him achieve is a lot more military spending, what is the view inside of the military, this increased spending and this new commander in chief. >> of course first he had has to get from under sequestration which i am assume the republicans will do for him. >> dickerson: the budget cans, that limit the amount of spending on military. >> and once you get out from under that, they also want to increase the size of the military. if donald trump serves only one term, i am not sure there will be enough time for the military

to get significantly larger in that period of time, because it is not just a matter of bringing in more recruits. it is what kind of redispliewts they don't need more rival men, they need more cyber warfare experts and things like that. >> dickerson: jan, let me ask you, before, i want to ask you about donald trump's pick for supreme court, but first i want to ask you about just what is the, what does the court have coming up in this next year that, are there big cases? >> the justices comeerly decided to kind of take, not take the year off but certainly kind of avoid any major controversial cases, so this is a term that does not have the blockbuster case swres seen in years past with obamacare, sex, same sex major, affirmative action, this is a term focused across the street on the u.s. senate and the confirmation of the next justice to replace, you know, conservative icons, justice scalia. >> dickerson: what do you expect from that? >> trump released a list before the election of potential nominees that he would consider,

and my sources say he is sticking to that list and narrowed it down to just a handful of highly qualified, very respected appellate court judges, i mean these are conservative legal rock stars, this is not going to be a battle over qualifications. this will be a battle over ideology. >> dickerson: any top names -- >> yes. >> no, no, because this is ongoing right now. this is something, to major's point they are going to move quickly on this. they are narrowing the focus on a handful like i said of appellate court judges, bill pryor from the atlanta based federal appeals court, thomas hard man, a judge on the philadelphia based appeals court, steve -- iowa upon the u.s. court of appeals, eighth circuit, a judge diane -- from the seventh circuit and larson on the michigan supreme court, all highly qualified, you can't argue with their credentials. >> dickerson: jeff let me ask you about the fbi director, he had a pretty tough end to 2016. >> he certainly did. >> dickerson: what is the state of things inside the fbi

and what about the director himself? >> well, i think there is a lot of concern about what happens next, from what i am hearing from sources and people who know james comey, there is the no contact yet with president-elect trump so a lot of people are trying to see where this goes, will he stay on or will he resign? because as you know, he is a lightning rod in washington, d.c. right now, i think he has critics on both sides of the aisle. he may see that as a good place to be, because he sees himself as above politics, as the fbi director, but he is facing a lot of criticism, and not only from people on capitol hill but also former agents who question some of his tactics over the last six months. so he is really, and the fbi for that matter is facing uncertain times right now. >> and here are some very unusual, a lot of democrats blame jim comey for hillary clinton's loss but a lot of democrats don't want him to leave either because they don't want to give donald trump

license to be involved in choosing a new fbi director, it is a matter of the devil you know. >> dickerson: margaret let me ask you about president obama, who you were covering at the end of his administration. we haven't had a situation since woodrow wilson lived in president in and lives in washington, what do you expect? >> you won't have the dramatic exit in marine one where you have to drive over to -- on january 20th. but. >> dickerson: take an uber. >> exactly. so you are seeing the white house, the president has said i want to sort of coach in some ways the president-elect through this transition, very sort of gently saying, look, he is an amateur but saying i am going to help him try to navigate this major bureaucracy that is the federal government. the twitter account of the white house is now in federal records for all-time, and that twitter account will become donald trump's on january 20th, that, the weight of those words is not only going to be amplified around the world but sealed in our history, so how he starts to

communicate once he takes that office is going to have profound effects and i think that is something that certainly president obama has tried to quietly suggest to him. >> dickerson: let me ask you about the world that donald trump inherits, either through donald trump or through his secretary of state, what do you think the first things are that they have to do or they should do, pitch the way the world is looking at the incoming trump presidency? >> well, the diplomats i talk to say there are two things people hate, when the financial markets or foreign markets is unpredictability and right now what donald trump is suggesting is that the u.s. will be a source of insecurity, perhaps some uncertainty when it comes to decision making, because he is not going to lean on the coalitions, the natos, the uns of the world like president obama tried to emphasize so he will have try to have more of a transactional relationship with global leaders. the test of that is now you are going to have rex tillerson, secretary of state who understands the weight of words because he moves global markets with them as achieve

executive of exxon mobil, can he play cleanup and really sort of work out some of those rough edges on the foreign policy front for donald trump. >> dickerson: he ran as an unpredictable, that was his selling point. one of. >> one of them and it is important what margaret brings up, because if you -- if you want to understand trump i really recommend, this is not to sell his book but if you read art of the deal you get a sense of who he is and what he became on the campaign trail, and one of the things he says very early on in the book is i like to work the phones, i make 100 phones a day and crack open conversations and see where they go, the china -- is a classic thing he wants to crack open the situation and see where it goes and see what happens. unsettled things, get on the phone and see what happens. and see where it leads, the china-taiwan thing. there is not an organized structure to the foreign policy, once you crack open a conversation, yes, you make a new deal but what are you in pursuit of and trying to accomplish? >> david i want to get your take on what does the pentagon worry

most about in terms of threats from the world? >> well, if you listen to what james -- who will be the next secretary of defense says, the biggest short-term threat is russia, the biggest long-term threat is china, and the biggest threat to stability in the middle east is iran. and that is not a particularly unconventional world view, i would think that most members of the obama administration hold that same view. i think where mattis will differ from the obama administration is in pushing back. that doesn't necessarily mean going to war because he also said many times that before you go to war you have to think it all the way through, and be sure you can sustain it. but i think it will mean more frequent and visible shows of force. we just had this incident where the chinese stole that

underwater drone from a navy research vessel, when that happened you knew with the obama administration what was going to happen. they were going to play that as low-key as possible and keep it from being an irritant in the overall relationship. again, we have no idea what donald trump will do the first time somebody makes off with a drone. i mean he tweeted let them keep it. but as president, when somebody makes off with your sovereign property, you may have an entirely different point of view. >> dickerson: and how worried are they about north korea? >> i think north korea is the unanswered and so far unsolvable problem that the u.s. faces. he seems to have made a strategic decision. he is going to get a nuclear arsenal no matter what the cost in economic sanctions. so it is only a matter of time before north korea has a genuine

capability to launch a nuclear weapon against the united states. the question is, is donald trump going to sit there and let that happen? >> dickerson: jeff, let me ask you about russia, we have this, at the end of 2016, the gap between the president who is getting ready to retaliate against russia for hacking and the president-elect who didn't even think that was a the serious finding on the part of the intelligence agencies. when donald trump heard about the hacking, he said, you know, remember these are the same people who thought there were weapons of mass destruction in iraq, kind of a big shot at the intelligence agency he is going to have to work with. yes. and i think within the intelligence community that was a shot across the bow. i think there was a lot of concern about how the president-elect handled that, and how he will and the intelligence community going forward. >> dickerson: let me ask you a question about the attorney general. senator jeff sessions, what changes should people be looking for in that area? >> he is someone who i think is

quite conservative and beliefs strongly in the right position, by right i mean the conservative position, in terms of how you going to run that justice department. i think what is going to be very interesting and we will get an early kind of clue for how democrats are going to react to some of these nominations, the outside groups are really beating senator sessions up right now over some of his past history, they are trying to make this kind of questions of race going back 30 and 40 years, the democrats on the committee are going to try to focus on, to your point, how he will run that department, what it will mean for voting rights and immigration. will he implement some of these hartline, hard-line policies that have been suggested on the campaign trail. so that actually could have an impact on the justice department unlike the supreme court, which when you talk about change and trump, president-elect trump coming in here and upending washington and turning the tables upside down he will not change the supreme court, even if he 0 no, ma'am aates one of the nominees we have been talking about, conservatives, strong conservatives, they will

be -- that nominee will be replace ago conservative icon, justice scalia, it will not change the balance of the supreme court, the direction of the supreme court at all. >> dickerson: i want to talk to you about that a in a second and get, nancy to your thoughts on how the democrats will respond to all of this in a second. we will take a break and do that and be back in a moment. which means, you're controlling your cough on your morning commute. and later when you're joking with beth... even when most cough medicines stop, delsym is still working. ♪ and when your days' over, your cough is still under control. thanks to the #1 12-hour cough medicine. delsym. the cough controller.

why do people have eyebrows?i. why do people put milk on cereal? oh, are you reading why people put milk on cereal? why does your tummy go "grumbily, grumbily, grumbily"? why is it all (mimics a stomach grumble) no more questions for you! ooph, that milk in your cereal was messing with you, wasn't it? yeah, happens to more people than you think... try lactaid, it's real milk, without that annoying lactose. good, right? mmm, yeah. i got your back. lactaid. it's the milk that doesn't mess with you. and we are back with more from our cbs correspondent round table, nancy, i want to start a with you and pick up on the

point jan was making about what deposition are going to do to resist the -- mr. trump's picks. what is your sense of how they are going to do it? resist everything, pick your shots? is there one more key battle to watch? >> they will have to pick their battles because almost to a person, these nominees, democrats believe are antithetical to the positions they intend to hold. they think, for example, that if you don't believe that the environment is in trouble, you shouldn't be running the epa and on and on, however democrats also want to be able to make a larger point, not just about this nominee or that nominee but that in general they believe that the trump administration is outside the mainstream and if you have got every senate democrat making that case against every single nominee that message will get lost so they will try to pick a few marquee nominees to really go after in public hearings to try to get a lot of attention. beyond getting attention, it is

not clear that there is much that they can do to stop any of these nominations and they know that, because they simply don't have the numbers. >> dickerson: what are your thoughts on chuck schumer, mitch mcconnell famously told major garrett he wanted to keep president obama to being a one term president. is that the way chuck shiewm search, chuck schumer as leader of the democrats in the senate is -- >> i am not sure that is in the dna -- >> dickerson: the obstructionist. he wants to make a deal. >> he likes to make a deal, obstructionist wants to cut a deal on infrastructure spending, even though there are going to be some in his own party that say if you caught deal with donald trump on that or anything else, you are going to send a message to the rest of the country that he is someone who can get things done, and we shouldn't allow that to happen a. >> dickerson: david, let me ask you about terrorism, because it was talked about so much by donald trump in the campaign, he said he wanted a 30-day plan to take care of isis. what is your sense of where that battle stands when the president inherits it? >> well, he is going to inherit

a battle in which isis is just losing ground by the day. they have lost half of the territory they once held in iraq, and the battle of mosul is going to be long and it is going to be ugly. but the city is surrounded. they are going to lose. so geographically, isis is losing, but of course as everybody points out it is the idea that you have to kill as well. you might get lucky, kill bag, baghdad difficult of isis and that will collapse the whole impetus behind the movement but i doubt it. >> dickerson: it is hard to kill an idea. >> it is hard to kill an idea, so whatever donald trump inherits on the ground, the real battle is going to be in the air for the battle of ideas. and there was a lot of concern, john, once they squeeze isis on the battlefield and al qaeda on the battlefield they will -- the

killers will then spread out across western europe and maybe try to come here to the u.s. and the next question is, okay, so isis falls, then what happens on the day after? we have heard the president-elect criticize the current president for leaving a vacuum in the middle east, failure, that disappearing red line in syria, the failure to prevent atrocities, so if you take out isis in syria or in iraq, how do you actually build up a government that can keep a functioning the military this time? right? how do you prevent repeating the mistakes that they criticized the obama administration for? i would say watch really carefully what happens in syria, that is going to be such a litmus test, because of that articulation of american weakness there that trump hit obama on. does he choose to see this as a battlefield against iran, which has strengthened its hold on the region and iranian-backed militias or see this as a way to partner with the russians who

backed bashar al-assad, that we call a war crime. >> the obama administration struggled mightily not to be distracted by anything in syria other than the war against isis, do not get involved in the civil war. and i can't imagine that general mattis wouldn't have the same advice to president trump, whether or not president trump follows that advice is another question. >> he also sees its to as a civil war anymore, it is a ground war with iran, it is an air war with russia and if you want to solve some of the problems when you look at europe, that refugee crisis, that flow of terrorists that jeff was talking about, the beating heart of that is in syria, and you need to address that in some way. maybe it is not the ground troops that president obama said were the only answer and the one he shut down but he has to do something. >> dickerson: and it is safe haven, you asked the regional allies for money and they say no, it is not a real estate transaction, it is actually

hardball geo politics with the saudis, no we won't pony up, you told the people in america we would, no we wouldn't. >> they want the saudis to pay for it. >> exactly. and if that doesn't happen, where are you left? where the obama administration has been struggling for six years. >> it is a safe haven does does that mean you are willing to shoot down a russian aircraft to protect them? >> and leading to this idea of human a terron corridors, it is not even a no-fly zone as we describe it, so there is some mushiness here in terms of what that could actually mean. >> dickerson: let me move on to the final round here which is predictions for the year of 2017. jeff, i will start with you. >> oh, great. >> dickerson: i want to -- give us a prediction about something that is going to happen in 2017 or a clever way to get out of the question. >> listen, i was struggling over this one because i felt like, you know, i could go the easy you route and say something about isis, but i am going to go the harder route and talk about james comey, frankly, because

where will he be in january? i think he will be at the fbi. there are a lot of people in washington who might disagree with that, but i have talked to sources who say that he has spoken in groups of retired agents and he has been very comfortable there, and he has the defended his decisions in something he had to do given the cards he was dealt. so i think he stays at the fbi. >> dickerson: he? comfortable with retired agents but doesn't want to become one. nancy, what is your prediction for 2017? >> i think by the end of the year you will see a new democratic organization that does not currently exist, that does not currently exist, designed to try to reach some of these white working class voters that the clinton administration -- the clinton campaign wasn't able to reach in 2016. you have got a number of high ranking clinton campaign officials who thought they would spend the next four years very

busy at 1,600 pennsylvania avenue now working for a new purpose. >> dickerson: david, what are your thoughts for 2017. >> the bar is low because everybody has been so wrong. all the time about donald trump i will predict he will meet personally with kim jong un the leader of north korea and attempt to cut a deal that will aat least somehow freeze the nuclear weapons program. >> dickerson: a year from now we will be writing about haven't mike pence the most important person in the trump administration, because at every personnel level and more term he will have won more than he lost and whatever the ideology of donald trump is the people implementing it will be im, vetted by mike pence and in more ways than dick cheney a very powerful vice president. >> i want to stick with something that is much more predictable and that is alabama

is going to win the national championship. i mean, that is something i think we can all say. >> the sunrises and the sunsets -- >> the crimson tide, is that good enough or want a serious one? we know that is going to happen. that is really not much of a prediction. i think the supreme court confirmation is going to be the biggest battle that we will see i think it is going to be a place where democrats to kind of put all of their pent-up rage and frustration at what happened in november. you are going to see a real effort to block president trump's nominee to the supreme court. my prick sun in is that will fail. >> dickerson: all right. and margaret, your prediction? >> no sleep for any of us for the entire year and frequent confrontations, small scale or otherwise with both iran pushing the limits of its nuclear program, seeing if the trump administration enforces it and with north korea, which is about scheduled for another test some time soon. >> dickerson: a busy year. thank you all for being here at the end and that is it for our

correspondents round table and thank all of you for being here and we will be back in a moment. >> ,,,,,,,,,,

>> dickerson: that's it for us today. thank you for watching. we want to wish ever a merry

christmas and a happy than karks we will be back here on new year's day for another special broadcast. we hope 0 to see you then. for "face the nation". i am john dickerson. (coughs) that cough doesn't sound so good. well i think you sound great. move over. easy booger man. take mucinex dm. it'll take care of your cough. fine! i'll text you in 4 hours when your cough returns. one pill lasts 12 hours, so... looks like i'm good all night! ah! david, please, listen. still not coughing. not fair you guys! waffles are my favorite!

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