From the "Fire and Fury" fallout to Congress returning to work , the first few days of 2018 have already ushered in some big headlines.
We asked our reporters to tell us about a few of the stories they’ll be keeping tabs on during the second week of January.
Watch their responses in the above video player.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
MR. COSTA: Before we go tonight, let’s look ahead to next week and talk about the stories we’ll all be covering as we start the second week of the new year.
Peter?
MR. BAKER: One of the things I’m looking at next week and in the weeks to come is what the president is going to do about Middle East peace. Vice President Pence is scheduled to go to the region. The whole issue has been blown up because of President Trump’s declaration of Jerusalem being the capital of Israel. And this week he threatened to cut off aid to the Palestinians if they don’t come to the peace table. The people who don’t want President Trump to cut off aid to the Palestinians? The Israelis because that aid has helped solidify and stabilize the region.
MR. COSTA: Amy?
MS. WALTER: Congress comes back, the House comes back next week and they’re coming back to a drama once again. And the question that I’m looking for ‒ it’s not just next week, but in these coming weeks ‒ is, how many more members are going to hang it up and decide to retire? They passed a tax bill which was their number-one priority. They’re coming back and looking at an environment that’s still not looking particularly good for them if you’re a Republican. And there’s still the threat, we still don’t know where the threat of these sexual harassment allegations. Before we had left for Christmas break, we had heard so much about the fact that there were 20 or 30 members who were being identified by news organizations. Is that going to be an incentive as well?
MR. COSTA: Erica?
MS. WERNER: An issue that we’re going to have to start paying more attention to is trade with NAFTA being renegotiated. There was an Oval Office meeting with some key Republican senators yesterday where they urged Trump to reverse course and stay in NAFTA, not go through his threats on that. There’s also some decisions pending on steel and aluminum where Trump will have to decide whether to in fact crack down on China, as he’s threatened to do, but has not yet done, so that’s going to be an interesting issue.
MR. COSTA: And I’m going to be watching the inaugurations of the new Democratic-elect governors ‒ Phil Murphy in New Jersey, Ralph Northam in Virginia ‒ I want to hear what they have to say about the future of their party.
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