"We think the lame duck moniker is dead," a senior administration official told CBS News. Another official told CBS that the president has instructed his senior staff to "squeeze every last drop of progress out of the final year."

The president will fight to preserve gains in areas including "access to affordable health care, expanding the green economy, implementing the Iran deal" and continuing the normalization of relations with Cuba," the official said.

Here's where he may make some progress:

Criminal justice reform

With some of Congress' most liberal and conservative members working together reform the nation's sentencing laws, criminal justice reform stands a decent chance at becoming law.