Colom Wins Mississippi, Trump Warns Incoming Democrats, Russia-Ukraine Talks

Mississippi is sending its first black senator to Congress in 146 years. Democrat Scott Colom won by fewer than 5,000 votes. What does his victory say about the new politics of the Deep South? I'm E. Martinez, that's Michelle Martin, and this is Up First from NPR News. The White House fires a warning shot at Democrats who plan to investigate the Trump administration. What could the White House actually do to resist congressional oversight? And U.S. mediators will meet with Russia's president in Moscow today after Russia-Ukraine talks produced one concrete result, a large prisoner exchange. Rutkoff and Kushner will meet with Ukraine's president tomorrow. The reality is, is there's no trust right now between the sides, and that's to be expected after a conflict like this. Is the shuttle diplomacy making any real progress? Stay with us, we'll give you news you need to start your day. Last night in Mississippi, the U.S. Senate race, was finally called and history was made. The state is now sending the first black senator to Congress in nearly 150 years. Elise Katrine Gregg of Gulf States Newsroom and Mississippi Public Broadcasting was at Senator-elect Scott Colom's victory party in Jackson. Joins us now. Elise, what did the senator-elect have to say? Good morning. Well, first and foremost, he said a lot of thank yous to his wife, his two young daughters, his campaign team, and the voters. Colom has been confident for months that he'd win, and he certainly took the time to write a letter to the U.S. Senate. He didn't recognize that, but he also acknowledged that he didn't do it on his own. It's not something that I did, y'all. It's something that we did. All I did was have the courage to imagine a night like this. I had the courage to believe in Mississippi. It was a tight race, though, and Colom, who ran on health care access and affordability, won by just shy of 5,000 votes. Becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate race in nearly four decades, and the first African-American since Reconstruction. I'm going to guess that the energy was high last night. Oh, yeah. I was at that rally and his watch party a week ago on election night, and if energy was high on election night, it was through the roof yesterday. People I spoke with last night just seemed proud. You know, there was a lot of joy, a lot of excitement, and no small amount of relief. The rally was at Tougaloo. Tougaloo College, a historically black institution, so plenty of students were there, including Nakia Tullis, who's also a Mississippi native. It's just a thrilling experience, personally. It just goes to show that anything is possible. You're never too small, and your dreams are never too big for you to accomplish, and you just keep going, because this is truly amazing. And everybody had signs and banners cheering Colom on. What do you think this win means about the Deep South? What did we learn? Well, first, that issues of affordability and the impact, of policies like the Iran war, have become financially untenable for voters across the board. Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith ran on her record and her support of President Trump, and that's simply no longer a winning strategy. And voters were clear about their opposition to any restrictions on their right to vote. Mississippi hasn't redistricted yet, but there's clear dissatisfaction with the Louisiana v. Calais decision, which significantly gutted the Voting Rights Act. And Mississippians faced voter inactivations after the Secretary of State switched systems to check voters. That could have made voting urgent for people here. And this race may also say that change is coming nationally, and that the South, which is often overlooked, is investable for Democrats, and they'll need to keep up in the region. Any chance that there'll be challenges from state Republicans? Yeah, that seemed highly likely while votes were still being counted, but now not so much. Hyde-Smith conceded in a video posted to her social media Wednesday night. While this is not the outcome we worked for or hoped for, I respect the decision, of Mississippi voters. I want to congratulate Scott Cologne and wish him well as he takes on the tremendous responsibility of representing our great state. And the state Republican Party congratulated Cologne on his win and campaigning, so we may have a quiet wrap to this race with these concessions. All right, that's Elyse Katrine Gregg of Gulf States Newsroom and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Thanks a lot. You're welcome. The White House fires a warning shot at Democrats who say they're going to investigate administration officials, saying their planned investigations and oversight work could cross the line into, quote, blatant criminality. It's the latest maneuver from the Trump administration in advance of the Democratic takeover of Congress next year. NPR senior political correspondent Tamara Keith has been following this, and she's got more now. Good morning, Tam. Good morning. So tell us about this warning from the White House. What do they say? Yeah, it came in a letter from White House counsel Will Scharft, to Democratic Congressman Robert Garcia, who is expected to lead the House Oversight Committee next year. And in this letter, Scharft says the administration is monitoring, quote, abusive and capricious threats made by Democrats. And then I just want to read you the last line of the letter. He writes, 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. Okay, well, that's interesting. I mean, coming from an administration that I would say many people believe has used the levers of government to try to punish political enemies, you know, used governmental processes to attack people for reasons of, you know, pettiness and hatred and so forth. So just saying that that's kind of the context here. So how are Democrats responding to that? Yeah. Congressman Garcia said Congress has wide latitude to conduct investigations and oversight. And he said Democrats will not be deterred by threats from the Department of Justice or the president's lawyers. And I'll just note that last year, the Republican-controlled House Oversight Committee conducted an investigation of former President Biden's use of an auto pen. So there's a history of Congress taking a broad view of its oversight role. Do we have any understanding of what is behind this? Do we have any understanding of what is behind this letter from the White House? Yeah, it's part of a larger pattern. In social media posts over the weekend, President Trump complained about what he called threats from Democratic lawmakers directed towards Republicans, members of his administration, and donors. The president wrote that, quote, these sleazebags should go to jail for what they're doing. And then over the weekend, Attorney General Todd Blanch on CNN didn't rule out his own investigations or prosecutions. And of course, I'm wondering about, is there any legal basis for what the administration thinks it can do? And I guess the question is, are these arguments going to, are they likely to work? Yeah, they might buy time and force Democrats to go to court to enforce their subpoenas. This is how Ty Cobb, who was a White House lawyer in the first Trump term, put it when I gave him a call. They're putting up speed bumps in front of the steamroller that they can see coming. They're going to do their best to prolong all these battles and refuse to provide information. But he says Congress, has a lot of protections under the Speech and Debate Clause. And in his view, there are plenty of things to investigate and legislate. There is no legal validity to these claims by Scharf or by Blanch. They're baseless under the law. Congress certainly has a legitimate interest in ethics legislation, preventing corruption, ensuring the absence of war crimes, and having an administration comply with legitimate court orders. But what this letter tells us is what we can expect, for the next year. It's a preview. And more than anything else, it's a signal that the White House and the Justice Department aren't going to accept congressional investigations and oversight without a fight. So I'd say buckle up. Buckle up. That's NPR's Tamara Keith. Tam, thank you. You're welcome. President Trump's envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, are in Moscow today for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Then they'll move on to Europe. They're up to meet with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky. And their goal will be to see if they can make more headway on U.S. efforts to end Russia's war with Ukraine following two days of talks between the two sides in Abu Dhabi. NPR's Charles Mainz is in Moscow to tell us more. Good morning, Charles. Morning, Michelle. So let's start with these peace talks in Abu Dhabi. Did they achieve anything? Well, these negotiations were the first since February, and they delivered just one concrete result. Russia and Ukraine agreed to what's being billed as the largest prisoner exchange so far in the war. That's, of course, good news. Good news, but it's not why the U.S. got these two sides together. The goal here was and is much bigger. How so? Well, the U.S. entered into these talks saying it wanted to explore a new long-term security arrangement between Russia and Europe, believing that that could unlock concessions from both Kiev and Moscow to end the actual fighting. And so that really was the focus in Abu Dhabi, all the more so because negotiations over ceasefires and other concessions have really gone nowhere, as Kushner noted after the talks. The reality is, is there's no trust. Right now, between the sides, and that's to be expected after a conflict like this. So he's really just trying something new. And do we have a sense of how Russia's responding to all this? Well, this is a conversation the Kremlin has been demanding, because at least from President Putin's perspective, the war in Ukraine has always been about relitigating the end of the Cold War. It's about establishing buffer zones against NATO's expansion, and that really means a new approach to European security. Russia's lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, in Abu Dhabi used this rather colorful, - Matter of fact, the whole body is sick. So here he says that the whole body of European security is sick and needs curing and calling Ukraine a cyst that had burst to the point where a Band-Aid wouldn't help. Now, Medinsky went on to add that in some areas, Russia and the U.S. had found some common ground. Clearly, it didn't include territorial concessions. After the talks, he told Russian media that, quote, every inch of our land would be returned one way or another. So not exactly signaling flexibility. And what are the Ukrainians saying to all this? Well, they were upbeat because in these conversations is something Ukraine's also been after, security guarantees against any future Russian incursion, although we don't have details. What we do know is that going into these talks, U.S. officials were exploring Article 5-like guarantees for Ukraine from the U.S. That's a reference to NATO's collective security defense, which, if it happened, would be a huge deal. The catch, Moscow has already rejected the idea of a NATO-like status for Ukraine, just as it rejects Ukraine's full membership. OK, so let's turn to the Moscow visit. What exactly are Vutkov and Kushner hoping to do? Well, Kushner said they want to brief Putin directly and convince him to include Europeans in these discussions, which are, after all, about European security. Now, European governments are clearly nervous about a deal being cut with Moscow over their heads, so much so they send envoys to Abu Dhabi to get updates from the U.S. and Ukraine on the sidelines. And some European leaders are expected to join Kushner and Vutkov when they meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. But Russia has been really dismissive about the idea of giving Europe's military support for Ukraine. How dismissive? Well, Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, compared the Europeans in Abu Dhabi to tourists hanging out in the hotel lobby. Wow. That's NPR's Charles Mainz in Moscow. Charles, thank you. Thank you. And that's Up First for Thursday, November 12th. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Ian Martinez. Today's episode of Up First was. Edited by Tina Kriah, Rebecca Metzler, Miguel Macias, Mohamed El-Bardisi, and Alice Wolfley. It was produced by Ziad Bunch and Nia Dumas. Our director is Christopher Thomas. We get engineering support from Nisha Hainas and Patrick Murray. Our technical director is Margaret Luther. And our deputy executive producer is Kelly Dickens. Join us again tomorrow. Up First is brought to you by the U.S. Department of State.