Just before Christmas, Donald Trump optimistically predicted that Democrats and Republicans would unite in short order. “At some point, and for the good of the country, I predict we will start working with the Democrats in a Bipartisan fashion,” he tweeted on the Friday morning before his departure to Mar-a-Lago. But despite ending 2017 on a high note with the passage of tax reform, the Republican Party is struggling to coalesce around a legislative strategy for the New Year as looming skirmishes with Democrats threaten to make this year just as contentious, partisan, and toxic as the last. And while the issues facing Congress—immigration reform, and whether or not to shore up Obamacare—are the very points that have historically split the Republican Party, they have proven to be rallying points for Democrats, giving the latter party an ostensible advantage.

With tax reform in the rearview mirror, a debate is reportedly roiling the White House over how Trump can best exploit the victory. As Trump continues to battle flagging approval ratings, administration aides are split over whether the president should strike a more bipartisan, conciliatory tone in the New Year by tackling infrastructure and working with Democrats on a deal to protect the so-called “Dreamers,” or focus on entitlement reform to satiate his conservative base. In recent weeks, Trump has reportedly signaled that he would like to do both—a relatively unrealistic goal considering a rumored staff exodus, and one that would see the president torn between warring interests of Republican leadership: House Speaker Paul Ryan has indicated that he plans to reform entitlement programs to offset tax cuts, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he’s “not interested” in the issue, likely due to the G.O.P.’s majority of 51 to 49 in the upper chamber. Such a slim a margin all but guarantees that entitlement reform would be dead on arrival.

Nor are the perils of going after the welfare state lost on Trump’s allies. “Infrastructure first,” Newt Gingrich, a former House Speaker and a longtime Trump ally, told Politico. “I wouldn’t touch entitlements. There’s zero reason to pick a fight on any of those in an election year.” And with an approval rating hovering below 40 percent, experts say Trump should think twice about alienating huge swaths of the electorate by attacking popular programs like Medicaid and Medicare. “They absolutely should worry about 2018,” Ari Fleischer, a former press secretary to President George W. Bush, told Politico. “I do fear a wave election. Democrats are highly motivated to vote against Trump and all Republicans. Trump has got to grow beyond the base, and he has got to make himself less hated among a group in the middle.”

In the face of this intraparty fracture, Republicans face an imminent showdown with Democrats over a number of key issues. Congress is up against a January 19 deadline to pass legislation funding the government through October, and Bloomberg reports that some Democrats intend to force Trump to sign legislation that protects undocumented immigrants who were formerly shielded by the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Trump has signaled that he won’t sign any legislation unless Democrats agree to fund a U.S.-Mexico border wall and a broader overhaul of the immigration system. (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has dismissed this idea, characterizing DACA as a “discrete emergency” that should be addressed independently.)

Meanwhile, Congressman Mark Meadows, has signaled that his conservative House Freedom Caucus intends to go to the mat over DACA, and expressed doubts that a spending deal can be reached. “It looks like we’re going to spend more money on growing the government in January than perhaps the biggest amount of money that we spent since the Obama stimulus plan. And that’s a concern for conservatives,” Meadows told CBS News. The North Carolina lawmaker also foreshadowed another battle over the re-authorization of FISA, a controversial surveillance program that the House Freedom Caucus reluctantly extended until January 19. The fate of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the cost-sharing reduction payments to stabilize the Obamacare exchanges also remain uncertain—“People are not going to come back singing the Sound of Music together. January is going to be contentious,” Meadows told Bloomberg.

Such legislative battles were seemingly inevitable, but lawmakers are perhaps most sharply divided over special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation, and the fallout from its inevitable conclusion. While Democrats remain divided over the question of impeachment, Representative Jim Himes told The Washington Post that Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are “seriously exploring the possibility of issuing a minority report that details . . . the degree to which Republicans tried to impede a full investigation” into the question of Russian collusion. “It’s in both the Democrats’ and the Republicans’ interests to . . . write a report based on a common set of facts,” Himes said. “It would be a tragedy if the report has a minority section that says, ‘Look, we wanted to talk to these two dozen witnesses and weren’t able to do so.’”