And we start with breaking news tonight out of Mississippi, where David Donalds has defied history and shocked the political world, as CNN can now project that the Democrat and the local district attorney will defeat the incumbent Republican senator Cindy Hyde-Smith. He is now becoming the first Democrat that voters in deep red Mississippi have elected to the Senate in more than four decades, and he will also be the first Black person in statewide office there since Reconstruction.
David Donalds' victory extends the soon-to-be Democratic majority here in Washington in the Senate to 55 seats, as now we're waiting for Alaska to still be called. In a midterm election last week that was full of huge surprises, this might be the biggest one of all. The new senator-elect is getting ready tonight to address his supporters. As you can see here from Jackson, Mississippi, his team just put out that sign there that says 'Picked Another Senator' on the lectern, a play on that oh-so-memorable ad after Cindy Hyde-Smith had said her constituents could pick another protein when she was talking about the high cost of beef. Mississippians declared, 'Pick another protein' — they'd rather pick another senator instead, and that they did. My colleague Annie Greer has been on the ground. She has been covering this race as we've been counting these final votes. Annie, what are we hearing from the campaign so far? What do we expect the senator-elect to say tonight?
Well, we expect him to speak shortly behind me to a crowd, Kaitlan, that is so energized. I had an opportunity to talk to some folks in the crowd, and there's a mix of pure disbelief that Donalds was able to pull this off, and also people who felt like this is a long time coming, that Mississippi was bound to turn blue. And Donalds made a big part of his campaign this idea that Mississippi matters. He felt like he had to work really hard to get the Democratic Party to pay attention to him, to give him the eyeballs, the fundraising, the manpower. And he built a campaign around talking to people, meeting them where they are. And he specifically focused on energizing young people and Black women, which really helped propel his campaign forward. And so in this last week, while the results were still too close to call, he went around to local businesses and tried to use the spotlight to showcase what he would do in the Senate. Truly an unprecedented situation here, where what was once bright red has now turned blue. Kaitlan.
Yeah, and we will be waiting to see what he says in those first remarks. Annie Greer on the ground. Again, if you're just joining us, Senator-elect David Donalds is going to speak in Mississippi at any moment. Of course, we'll bring you his remarks when they happen. And as we're watching all of this tonight and talking about the power balance here in Washington, right now the White House is warning Democrats tonight about that pledge that they've made to investigate the Trump administration full tilt when they take over Congress in January. In a three-page letter that was sent to the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, the White House counsel Will Scharf wrote this, quote, 'The administration will not be extorted and will not be cowed by unlawful process motivated by animus, pettiness, hatred, or any other unlawful motive to intimidate, penalize, or interfere with the lawful functioning of government.' He goes on to write that threatening administration officials, they believe, could amount to, quote, 'blatant criminality.' Now, as you noted, that letter there was dated two days ago, which is something that happened not long after the president himself on Truth Social accused Democrats of threatening people and called it, quote, 'extortion at the highest level,' a sentiment that was echoed about 24 hours later by the attorney general.
You have members of Congress who, after Tuesday, have done nothing but threaten everything that's happening in this administration. That is not governing. That is not leading. That is not oversight.
Now, sources say tonight that the administration was particularly irked over those comments by Senator Elissa Slotkin, where she warned that even junior staffers could potentially become wrapped up in these investigations that Democrats are going to be carrying out once they take over power of Congress. In response to the White House, House Democrats have largely dismissed the letter, and the likely next House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries said, quote, 'A Democratic Congress is going to be a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch in the face of unprecedented corruption that they've unleashed on the American people. And if they don't like it, consult the Constitution.' My source tonight is the congressman that letter from the White House was addressed to. He is the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Representative Robert Garcia of California. And thank you for being here. Now that you've had some time to absorb that letter from the White House, how do you plan to respond to them?
Well, it's not going to change our posture at all. I mean, it's very clear that the president's counsel and the lawyers at the White House don't understand the Constitution, which lays out very clearly that it's the job of Congress to serve as oversight, to serve as an equal branch of government. Our job is to ensure that there are checks and balances. And the idea that the president, the attorney general, the White House legal team is trying to intimidate us is not going to work. We were elected to do oversight. We were elected to ensure that through good investigations we can pass new laws to stop corruption. And the American voters spoke. They want us to focus on not just affordability and lowering costs, but also to take on corruption, folks that are breaking the law, and certainly to take on the crimes that are happening across this country by the administration.
So, do you plan to respond to the White House counsel?
Well, our response is that we're going to keep doing what we've been doing every single day, which is focusing on the serious allegations against the Trump family. Whether it's Don Jr.'s 'Red Wedding,' whether it's sitting on boards getting contracts from the Pentagon, whether it's crypto schemes — they are billions of dollars richer, the Trump family, while the American public is struggling between paying for gas and the groceries. DHS and ICE is out of control, and there are allegations about pay-to-play from Kristi Noem and Corey Lewandowski, who created that ICE and deportation program. So all of these allegations of corruption are serious, and it is the job of Congress to investigate them to ensure they don't happen again.
So, we heard from the White House counsel tonight, actually, in his own words, about why he drafted this letter, and this is what he said.
What we've seen in the last week is this explosion by new Democrat members of Congress, by existing Democrat members of Congress, and they're talking about subpoenas and investigations for blatantly unlawful purposes. And I thought it was very, very important that just at the outset we set the tone. If there's going to be an investigative process here, it should be a dignified, lawful investigative process. Congressman Garcia saying that he was motivated by his own pettiness to bring subpoenas and investigate this administration is just so wildly inappropriate that I felt like it called for a vigorous response.
What's your response to that? He's saying you're motivated by your own pettiness, not the rule of law.
First of all, he's actually just lying. I mean, he's referring to a clip where I make a joke, and then the next sentence I say it's actually not about pettiness, it's actually about going after and getting accountability. And so, first of all, he's taking things out of context. He is not quoting members of Congress correctly. But this is what they do. They lie. They don't tell the full truth. They put information out there that ends up being inaccurate. And they are so thin-skinned. I mean, give me a break. This is a president that attacks everyone, that weaponizes the government, that puts out insane, crazy memes and AI slop every single day. Yet they cannot take members of Congress actually stepping up and calling out what's happening across the country because of his actions. They are going to be investigated because we want to stop corruption and we want to pass laws to ensure it doesn't happen again. And that is our right as members of Congress.
So, you take over and you're presumed to be the House Oversight Chairman. If you issue a subpoena and Todd Blanche, the attorney general, or Will Scharf, the White House counsel, says you don't need to respond to this and they defy it, what are you going to do?
Well, look, that's where I think Congress has to flex all of its power. As you know, when you're in the majority, we have the power to sue on behalf of the House. We have the power to go look at contempt, whether not just criminal contempt but also civil contempt. And so that's a process that goes through the courts, not the DOJ. And we also have to continue to organize. We have to continue to get the American public on our side. And the results on Tuesday made it really clear. When you ask people across the country — and I certainly did back home in California — but when you ask people across the country why they were motivated to vote and to bring change, they said the same two things: it was about affordability, and it was about rooting out government corruption. Well, we have a mandate to take on corruption, and certainly the corruption of the Trump family.
But what if the White House says we don't care about your mandate?
We're going to do everything we can to go through the courts and use the courts and use the contempt process to ensure that we actually get a response from what we're asking for, which is just getting questions answered.
Do you fear that this could just get stuck in the courts, though, going back and forth, where you don't actually see these documents or get this testimony that you're going to be seeking?
Look, we should be very clear-eyed that Donald Trump, from day one, has lied, has been dishonest, has called things like the Epstein investigation a hoax, has tried to divert our attention from the issues that people are actually facing in this country. But we're going to do everything that we can and be aggressive to get to the truth. And so we know there are going to be huge obstacles in front of us, but I think the American public expects us to do everything we can to get to the truth. And if we have to use the courts, we will.
If someone doesn't respond to your subpoena, do you have any confidence that the DOJ is going to enforce any recommendation to them?
Well, that's where there's two other pieces of this that are important. One is going through the civil contempt process through the courts if that's necessary. But also, I've been talking to attorneys general from across the country. There are also actions that our AGs are taking in the state process, at other state courts, that they will also have to — there's different levels of accountability for. It's not just the federal court system where there should be concern by the Trump administration, but also the state court system. And I think that piece of it, and also knowing that they're not going to be in office forever — Donald Trump's going to be in office for two more years. They're going to have to answer questions, whether it's now or whether it's tomorrow or in the future.
Elissa Slotkin had insinuated that they could go after future staffers or junior staffers. I believe that's been something the administration has focused on particularly. Is that going to be your target, or are you going to be going after the more senior people in the federal government?
I mean, look, right now our focus is on senior officials, and so that's not something that we've contemplated at this moment. I think that's, for me, the most important folks that we want to talk to. We want to talk to Kristi Noem. We want to talk to Kimberly Guilfoyle. We want to talk to Don Jr., Eric Trump, Stephen Miller. Those are the folks that we want to speak to, and we want to talk to anyone that was involved in Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, whether the co-conspirators, folks that were involved in the abuse of women and girls. And so our investigations are going to be focused, and I think at this moment people just need to understand that the American public have been clear: we've got to focus on accountability and affordability.
Stephen Miller is the chief of staff now. Do you think you can get him to testify?
Well, look, we're going to do everything we can to get him to answer questions. He certainly should be preserving documents. And I think what people need to realize is that if people thought that Donald Trump was somehow going to change his posture, that evaporated with the announcement of Stephen Miller. And this is the person that created the deportation and the detention system that's in place. It's incredibly inhumane. We've seen ICE agents murder people on American streets. We've seen, I think, Stephen Miller calling people that were out there protesting assassins. I mean, this is not someone that should be leading anything at the White House, and certainly it's someone that we have serious questions that we want answered. And whether that's now or in the future, we want answers from Stephen Miller.
When you see what Will Scharf is saying today, what Todd Blanche said on Sunday, what the president himself said, what do you think this is going to look like as you try to conduct oversight when you're in the majority?
Well, I think it's a president that is clearly hiding something. It's a president that is cowardly, that doesn't want to actually take the heat. For someone that gives so much anger and is so aggressive in his social media posts, he can't take a few members of Congress demanding accountability and demanding for there to be actual responses. I mean, it's comical how cowardly the actions of the administration have been just over the course of the last few days.
Do you have any one official that you want to testify or hear from first?
I mean, look, there's certainly a group of folks we want to hear from first, but we have a lot of questions for folks within the administration, whether that is now-former chief of staff Susie Wiles. We certainly have questions for former officials like Corey Lewandowski and Kristi Noem, and certainly we have questions for members of the Trump family. And so I think you're going to hear very soon folks that we're very interested in as we take the majority in January.
