>> brennan: welcome back to "face the nation" and our annual cbs news correspondents year-end roundtable. it's now in its 69th year, which means it's even older than "face the nation" itself. the tradition started in the very early days of television news. joining me today to continue it, for 2019, are our beat reporters based here in the washington bureau, david martin covers national security and you usually see him at the pentagon. jan crawford covers the supreme court and keeps us straight on all legal issues. jef pegues covers the justice department and homeland security. nancy cordes has been very busy up on capitol hill covering congress. paula reid is our go-to when it

comes to all things particularly legal with the president. she's now full time at the white house. and major garrett was formally chief white house correspondent. he now covers just about everything in washington as our chief correspondent in this town. thank you all for being here. nancy, you've had an incredibly busy end of year, and we may start 2020 with a trial, or will we? will president trump face a trial in the senate, and what will it look like? >> act one is over. act two is just beginning. we will definitely see a trial. i think it will happen in january. you know, nancy pelosi and mitch mcconnell have con this dance so often they could do it with their eyes closed. it's just that now they're fighting over impeachment. they're staking out their positions early. she wants to know what this trial is going to look like, whether there will be witnesses before she sends the articles of impeachment over. he says he doesn't have to listen to what she has to say. >> brennan: so major, we begin and end the year with impeachment.

what will the president do here? because he chose not to participate in the house case. if it goes to a trial, what is he going to do? >> he's going to take a lot of advice. he's offered conflicting messages about what he wants, at times saying i want a full-blown trial with lots of witnesses. meanwhile, senate republicans are saying, if the senate is prepared to acquit you, take the acquittal and go. i think the president will move over time toward this, something that looked like the clinton impeachment trial. a presentation of the charge, questions from the senators, and then possibly a motion to dismiss. and if 51 republican senators agree to that and talk the president into it, that could be the sum total of this process. >> brennan: chief justice roberts will be presiding over this trial when and if it begins in the new year. so, jan, what do we need to know about how he's going to try to run this? >> well, the chief justice i think is going to go in there with one goal, and that's not to not be the story. i think he's going to really

take a page from his predecessor and how he ran the trial of president clinton, the late chief justice william rehnquist and not be the story. i think what's interesting for the chief and for the court in general is as he is presiding over that trial across the street at the supreme court, the justices are in the middle of what is probably the biggest term in recent memory. >> brennan: that's going to be significant. i know, paul lark for the state department and for the secretary of state, this was an incredible, unexpected focus for peach -- for impeachment that thrust these people right enter a pretty harsh spotlight. secretary pompeo says he would be willing to testify and present evidence as required by law. he seems pretty confident he's not actually going to have to do that. >> it's a pretty safe bet that the white house will not ask him to testify. this question right now of what do you do if you are subpoenaed by congress and the white house

tells "you are my friend" can't can't -- tells you you can't cooperate is being litigated. different officials have different views. john bolton, he and his deputy are litigating this. they have asked the courts to decide if they have to cooperate. >> brennan: i think of rudy giuliani and his ongoing legal troubles. if there is new evidence or information that comes out due to a trial, due to some kind of court proceeding on the outside, what does do it to what happens inside the capitol and the trial to couple? >> giuliani is a wild card here. he is still traveling to ukraine, talking to former prosecutors, claiming that he he's got more evidence about joe biden and the former u.s. ambassador to ukraine and all the rest, something that republicans dearly wish he would stop doing. so you know, and the president continues to praise him and egg him on. that is a problem for the president, but at this point we don't see any signs of the republican wall of support for

him cracking. >> brennan: because giuliani has said he would be willing to participate in the senate trial, but he is alone in thinking that that is a good idea. mostly because he's currentry under investigation by the trump justice department. and there is no one in the west wing except for the president who has ever suggested to me that they believe he is helping his defense at this time. so the president as you noted, he believes he brings gravitas to his case. he still sees him as he was in 9/11. it's unclear if the president would support his participation. >> brennan: this is all the politics of it, but this came from the national security world, this concern. it all comes back to anti-tank javelin missiles, russia's annexation of crimea and intervention in ukraine. all of this is the becomedrop to what led to the withholding of military aid and the political standoff. what is the bottom line here in terms of if vladimir putin is emboldened. does the pentagon have concerns that all this public posturing has hurt their position?

>> politically emboldened. how can he not be politically emboldened when you have so many elected officials in the united states parroting his talking points, but i and the military and the pentagon all look at this through more nuts and bolts, and what we see is that ever since this annexation of crimea in 2014, the u.s. military has doubled down on its plans and its training for reinforcing europe. last year i went to an exercise in norway, which was the biggest since the end of the cold war, and next year the army is going to put more troops into germ than it has in this century. so the u.s. military, despite all the bad mouthing of nato, the u.s. military is continuing to concentrate on the defense of europe.

>> brennan: jeff pegues, on that russian interest front, tell me about election security going into 2020. will russia try to replicate what they did in 2016? >> well, i think that's what u.s. officials are anticipating. having covered this issue, it's hard to believe that when a criminal breaks into a house he's going to use the same tactic the next time. so that's the challenge here is trying to harden the systems that were weak in 2016, but then how do you try the anticipate what the russians might try to do next. every time we see any type of cyber attack, the tactics evolve, and so it remains a vulnerability there. >> brennan: the u.s. intelligence assessment said not just russia but china, iran, all things to watch and worry about in terms of election security, but i'd like for both you and paula the weigh in on the other big probe that we don't yet know the result of, and this is

what's called the durham investigation. this is all about the attorney general and, jan, you may know a bit about this, as well, giving your past interviews with him, what is it that we can expect the attorney general to reveal about the origins of the mueller investigation, the probe of the probe. is this going to be what president trump is looking for? >> i think it is. my sources tell me it's unlikely anyone will be criminalry charged. this is no longer just a review. this is a criminal investigation being conducted by the u.s. attorney in connecticut. i don't expect anyone will be charged, but the president doesn't necessarily need anyone to be charged, because if this is released next yeerg during the 2020 campaign, it's an opportunity for the president to revisit everything that we just heard in the inspector general's report about the mistakes that were made. >> this is a highly respected prosecutor, both sides of the aisle. so i think the report will have quite a bit of currency when he comes out with it. the attorney general made clear and has consistently made clear there was spying on the trump

campaign. he doesn't understand that word can be pejorative. it is what it is. if there was, what can the grounds for that? was there justification? it's a very broad charge that he has, and clearly the attorney general believes there's good reason for it. >> brennan: david martin, the trump administration is staring down an end-of-year deadline set by kim jong-un of north korea, saying that diplomacy expires. they are preparing for the test of satellite or long-range icbm. what this does is basically throws into question president trump's centerpiece foreign policy issue and thrusts us pretty close to crisis, not just in an year, but at a pretty critical time for north korea's nuclear program. how much stronger are they now? how much bigger is the threat? >> well, it's been more than two years since they tested a long-range missile that had reached the united states. but you can be sure kim

jong-un's rocket scientists have not been sitting around popping bon-bons for the past two years. they have been hard at work trying to develop a better, more reliable, more accurate missile. and we will know how much progress they have made when we start seeing their tests. and if they have developed a missile that doesn't just have the theoretical range of reaching the united states but has a no-kidding military capability to drop a nuclear warhead on us, then we are in a situation we have never within in before. 2019 in north korea is going to be remembered as the year the music died. and the music being this fantasia that kim jong-un give up his nuclear weapons and the u.s. and north korea would happily ever after. >> brennan: and it thrusts us

into 2020 politics. we will take a break here, because we have a lot more to talk about on the other side of this break. stay with us for our predictions for 2020. classic geico heroes, starring in six new commercials, with jaw-dropping savings. vote for your favorites at: geico.com/sequels ahhh, which way do i go?! i don't know, i'm voting for our sequels. with geico, the savings keep on going to a screen near you. not the leg! you dang woodchucks! geico sequels. vote and enter to win today! skip to the good part with alka-seltzer plus. not the leg! you dang woodchucks! now with 25% more concentrated power. nothing works faster for powerful cold relief. oh, what a relief it is! so fast!

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and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. >> brennan: and we're back now with our cbs news correspondents panel. jan, you mentioned a really busy year on the court. one of the things that will be rude on is what to do with these so-called dreamers, the daca program. what can we expect? when will that happen? >> that's a case about president trump's efforts to rescind that dreamers program that president obama put into place with the sign of a pen by executive action. >> brennan: it affects hundreds of thousands of people. >> i would not be surprised if the president loses that case, but this is a court in transition. in the olden days, and i've covered the court a long time, you could get a good feel for the way a court wound decide a case how they asked a question. a lot of the questions were designed to get the vote of justice kennedy. so the justices would tip their

hands because they would be going after the size. hownow they ask questions of boh sides. it makes this court very difficult to predict. i think any time that you see someone saying it looks like the court is going to rule this way, take that with a grain of salt. >> brennan: but we can expect this before the election? >> all of these cases will come down, most of the controversial cases come down by the end of the term in june, right in the middle of the presidential election. so you'll get the supreme court weighing in on daca, abortion right, guy right, gun rights potentially, the president's tax returns. these are all any given year one of these cases would be landmark, blockbuster. >> brennan: that red meat lands right in the middle of the election. >> and it will make the future of the court a central issue of the 2020 campaign. >> brennan: paul lark can you start us off? story you wish you could have covered? >> jeffrey epstein.

that case had everything. i watched our colleagues in new york covering that and say, my god, this trial has everything. this would have been the trial of a lifetime. in terms of undercoverred story, i'd say the same thing i said last year, the opioid epidemic, how that continues to impact lives. >> brennan: nancy? >> undercoverred story, anything but impeachment. i mean, congress just passed a $1.4 trillion spending package, all kinds of goodies, stuff in there, got very little coverage. big trade deal, very little coverage compared to impeachment. gun policy, we thought there was a hunting breakthrough after el paso, and dayton. the president came out and said he was for red flag laws, and he was for perhaps strengthening background checks, that the white house would be issuing some kind of proposal. we haven't seen anything. we haven't seen anything from the white house. we haven't seen a single hearing in the senate. nobody talks about it anymore. story i wish i had covered, paul will got to interview elmo and

big bird at the kennedy center honors. it was pretty cool. i would have got a lot of street cred with my kids. >> brennan: what about you, jeff? >> those ransom wear attacks on cities. it's costing tens of millions to cities and it's still flying under the radar. that's cost that will be passed on to taxpayers. >> brennan: jan. >> i think the underreported story is president trump's transformation of the federal judiciary. we talk about the two supreme court justices, but he's appointed a quarter of the federal appeals court bench now. 133 or more at this point federal district court judges. those judges are appointed for life. it's the president's most lasting legacy. they will be on the bench deciding issues of enormous importance for generations. the store i wish i had covered, the women's basketball final four, college basketball. it's a great event. i'm a big women's basketball fan.

incredible athletes and competition, and i wish i had covered that because that would suggest that we covered women's sports more. >> brennan: good point. david? >> well, at the risk of boring people, the withdrawal -- >> brennan: now you have to be cheery. you're scaring us, david. >> the withdrawal of the united states from the intermediate range inning nuclear forces treaty with russia. >> brennan: the inf treaty. >> it doesn't have to do much with russia. it has to do with china. china had been developing these missiles for years and years. now the u.s. can start developing those missiles. it's already conducted two tests. and what's at issue here is the buildup on those islands in the south china see. china has been making these military bases all around the south china sea. once the u.s. has an intermediate range land-based missile, they will be able to

threaten every single one of those buildup islands in the south china sea. the arms race with china is on, and in many cases like these missiles, we're playing catch-up with china. >> brennan: and that is i would say an underreport, undercoverred, and also back in your scary bucket, david, because there is so much, particularly on the diplomatic front, that is causing concern with china right now. what do you wish? >> i wish i had been there when they got baghdadi. that man was evil. and to have been there when he was brought to justice i think would have been a great experience. plus i would have been able to report whether or not he screamed and cried in his final moments as the president said he did. >> brennan: undercoverred and

wish you had covers? >> right. sometimes undercoverred stories are complicated. this one falls resolutely in that category. the president's relationship to people of color. his rhetoric is unacceptable. charlottesville is what people hear and think about when they think about the president and people of color, and yet it can be fairly said that this administration, because of president trump's quiet prodding, has done quite a bit for funding of historically black colleges and university, the first setback, which was massive first step toward criminal justice reform. just a couple weeks ago in this newly signed defense bill, there is a law that says if you are seeking work for the federal government or any contractor, you don't have to be asked and you cannot be asked about your criminal history until right toward the end. that is a significant change, long sought by criminal justice advocates. plus opportunity zones in the tax bill directedded at communities of color. that is a legacy on the agenda

side that almost any president after three years would want to claim, particularly president obama. many of those things were sought, but you know what, republicans would not go for it. quietly, persistently, president trump has pushinged republicans in this direction and i think that's an undercovered story. what do i wish i covered this year? any time i see our brilliant colleague mark phillips in the water covering an environmental story, that's where i want to be. >> brennan: major garrett on the climate beat. what is your prediction for the new year? >> it's safe but important. election turnout in november of 2020 will be the highest it's been in a century. it could near or possibly exceed 70%. >> brennan: dave martin, you have an incredible track record in your predictions. although i do have to say there is kind of a two-year delay. you predicted talks directly between president trump and kim jong-un. two years later it happened. owe predicted the demise of al-baghdadi, who you just talked about. it just happened. what's the prediction for 2021? >> 2020 the shaping up to be the

year of maximum danger. we have these two ticking bombs out there, iran and north korea. we have a president, a commander-in-chief running for reelection under the shadow of impeachment. but i'm going to draw back from the brink. i'm going to predict that we have an incident which serve as a wake-up call for our vulnerability in space. we are going to lose the services of some vital satellite, maybe say the global positioning satellite that runs all our lives. it will be temporary, but the worst part about it will be we won't know whether it was a technical malfunction, an accident, or an attack by a foreign power. >> brennan: because of our cyber vulnerabilities? >> because of the amount of effort that russia and china have been putting into

anti-satellite weapons ever since they witnessed what we could do with space in the gulf war of 1990. that's how long they've been working on this. and they know that our military and now our economy just depends on those satellites up in space. if you're going to strike america in its center of gravity, that's where it is. >> brennan: jan crawford, bring us back from the brink. >> tough act to follow. >> today's veráñ÷e race. if i go back to my beat, my prediction would be that the supreme court is not going the make anybody happy this year. i don't think it's going to be a court that is uniformly conservative with rulings for president trump or one that's going to be uniformly surprisingly positive for liberals. i think they will split the difference. as a result it will give everybody something to complain about. >> brennan: jeff?

>> okay. so i'm going to predict something that has a little bit to do with my beat and the rest is off the beat. so i think the baltimore ravens are going to win the super bowl. that's town with a lot of grit, a town that never gives up, and i just think given all that has happened there, they have the momentum. i think they're going to win the super bowl. >> brennan: all right. we'll let you check that off as a prediction. nancy? >> well, i'm going to go out on a limb an predict that democrats will retain control of the house, republicans will retain control of the senate, though the margins in both will shrink, and i think that while the impeachment inquiry in the house is over, the investigations of this president are not going to stop. they won some early court battles. they'll win some more i predict in 2020. so we could get a very fascinating glimpse for the first time at not only possibly the president's tax returns, but

also his personal and business finances. >> brennan: paula? >> i predict that the president's personal attorney, rudy giuliani, will be charged by the justice department. we know they are currently reviewing his finances. it's not that hard to run afoul of foreign lobbying requirements. and giuliani has told me he denies that he's broken any law, but he also tells me that bill barr would never charge me. but that completely flies in the face of what bill barr has said publicly. i cannot speak to whether he would be convicted, because while it is easy to run afoul of these laws, it's tough to get a conviction. you have a lot of questions about where he's getting his money. two of his close associates have been charged. we have learned they have received hundreds of thousands, millions in some cates, from folks with ties to oligarchs in ukraine and the russian mob. doesn't look good. >> brennan: thank you, paula. an we'll be right back.

>> our nations capital, decisions are made here that affect all of us. so join us every evening as we wring you cbs news original reporting from around the world while keeping our eye on what's going on right here in washington.

>> brennan: that's it for us today and for 2019. thank you for watching. we want to wish you and your loved ones a very happy new year.

and until next year, for "face the nation," i'm margaret brennan. in providing significantly clearer skin. tremfya® may increase your risk of infections and lower your ability to fight them. tell your doctor if you have an infection or symptoms or if you had a vaccine or plan to. serious allergic reactions may occur. tremfya®. uncover clearer skin that can last. janssen can help you explore cost support options.

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breaking news. two violent attacks on the faithful. gunfire erupts inside a church service in texas. three people are dead. tonight the panic and what we're learning about the investigation. and a knife wielding man targets a hanukkah celebration outside new york city. five people are hurt, one in critical condition. what police believe motivated this act of violence. >> just hate and violence. that's all it was. on the move, a powerful storm packing a one-two punch. rain, snow, and ice is impacting millions. we're tracking the forecast. on the defense, president trump unleashes a twitter firestorm. his latest attacks on