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CNN International: U.S. President Joe Biden Announces a Softer, Gentler Ban on Asylum Seekers; India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wins a Historic Third Term; Nigel Farage, Brexiteer, now Leader of a Far-Right Party in the U.K., Hit in the Face by Milkshake; Tuesday Marked 35 Years Since Beijing's Crackdown on Pro-Democracy Demonstrators in Tiananmen Square; British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, the Labour Opposition Leader, Went Head-to-Head in Their First TV Debate Tuesday. Modi Wins Record Third Term But with Smaller Majority; Veterans Return to Normandy to Mark D-Day. Aired 12- 1a ET
Aired June 05, 2024 - 00:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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JOHN VAUSE, CNN HOST, CNN NEWSROOM: Hello, everyone. I'm John Vause, ahead here on CNN Newsroom.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'll never separate children from their families at the border.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: U.S. President Joe Biden announces a softer, gentler ban on asylum seekers, but a ban nonetheless similar to the one tried unsuccessfully by the Trump administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARENDRA MODI, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER (Interpreted): In this third term, the country will write a new chapter of big decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: When victory seems more like defeat, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi wins an historic third term, but at the same time, support collapses for his ruling party, the BJP.
And Nigel Farage, Brexiteer, now leader of a far-right party in the U.K., hit in the face by milkshake for campaigning for next month's U.K. election.
ANNOUNCER: Live from Atlanta, this is CNN Newsroom with John Vause.
VAUSE: As of now, the United States will not accept any request for asylum by those who've crossed illegally into the country, all part of a sweeping executive order announced by President Joe Biden just hours ago. The restrictions on asylum requests are triggered when the number of illegal crossings is more than 2,500 a day on average.
In recent months, the number has been north of 3,000 and 4,000 a day, meaning the asylum shutdown went into immediate effect at midnight U.S. Eastern time. When the number of illegal crossings falls below 1,500 a day, those requests will resume.
President Biden says the executive action is needed to secure the southern border after Republican lawmakers rejected a bipartisan deal on immigration reform earlier this year, a deal which many saw as a one-sided Republican wish list.
But many on the far left have been critical of the President's executive action, which relies on the same immigration laws which the former Trump administration attempted to use to implement a failed ban on Muslims entering the country and a failed attempt to shut down asylum claims in 2018.
During his announcement, President Biden tried to highlight what seemed to be nuanced differences to his predecessor.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I will never demonize immigrants. I'll never refer to immigrants as poisoning the blood of a country. And further, I'll never separate children from their families at the border. I will not ban people from this country because of their religious beliefs. I will not use the U.S. military to go into neighborhoods all across the country to pull millions of people out of their homes.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: President Biden has been undergoing political pressure over the number of illegal crossings at the southern border. While those numbers have fallen in recent months, some White House officials fear an expected summertime surge could cause serious problems for Biden ahead of November's election.
CNN's Rosa Flores begins our coverage reporting in from the border- crossing town of Hidalgo in Texas.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROSA FLORES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): President Joe Biden announcing his toughest immigration policy, an executive order barring asylum when daily migrant apprehensions at the U.S. southern border hit a seven-day average of 2,500, a move that could result in the deportation of some migrants in a matter of days, even hours.
BIDEN: They choose to come without permission and against the law. They'll be restricted from receiving asylum and staying in the United States.
FLORES (voice-over): The measure clamps down on unlawful crossings between ports of entry since migrant apprehensions at the U.S. southern border are now about 4,000 per day. Biden appearing to take a page from Former President Donald Trump's hardline immigration playbook. Trump tried implementing a similar policy in 2018.
The ACLU let the challenge that caused courts to strike it down and says it plans to sue the Biden administration too.
LEE GELERNT, DEPUTY DIRECTOR, ACLU IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS PROJECT: We do not believe that any provision, whether it's 212(f) or any other provision, allows an administration to shut down the asylum system.
FLORES (voice-over): Biden administration officials defended the executive order, saying it includes humanitarian exceptions for unaccompanied migrant children for some medical emergencies and for victims of severe human trafficking.
The timing of the announcement --
NORMA PIMENTEL, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE RIO GRANDE VALLEY: The number of migrant apprehensions right now is very low, extremely low --
FLORES (voice-over): -- raising eyebrows among advocates like Sister Norma Pimentel because migrant apprehensions on the U.S. southern border have plummeted from nearly 250,000 in December to about 120,000 in May, a source familiar with the data told CNN.
FLORES (on-camera): So why do this, Sister Norma?
PIMENTEL: I would think it's because of the fact that we have an election very soon. And if he doesn't show a different uptick picture, then they have -- they're losing.
FLORES (voice-over): The apparent strategy by the Biden administration pointing the finger back at Republicans who failed to support the Senate's bipartisan border bill. Republicans fired right back saying it's too little too late.
STEVE SCALISE, U.S. HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADER: -- Joe Biden with a pen could fix the problems that he created, and he chooses not to. He doesn't want to fix the problem.
FLORES (voice-over): Caught in the middle of this political battle, playing out on the border --
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign Language)
FLORES (on-camera): He says that during his journey, he saw all cycles of life from newborns to the elderly, to people who died along the way.
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FLORES (voice-over): Migrants like Raphael (ph) from Venezuela who wants to go only by his first name for fear it could impact his case.
FLORES (on-camera): Do you think migrants are going to go back to their country?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (Foreign Language)
FLORES (on-camera): In my years of covering the Biden administration and his immigration policy, President Biden's immigration policy, I can tell you that I've heard from law enforcement, from officials, from voters on the border saying that they wanted the President to do something significant and that they were waiting for him to do something significant that they felt abandoned by the federal government, and that they would even say that while they did not agree with everything that Texas Governor Greg Abbott was doing when it came to his hardline immigration policies, they would say he's doing something.
Well, now, the federal government has actually done something. We're just going to have to wait and see what the actual effect is.
Rosa Flores, CNN, Hidalgo, Texas.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: With us this hour from Washington is David Bier, an expert on legal immigration, border security, and interior enforcement. He's also Director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute.
Great to have you with us.
DAVID BIER, DIRECTOR OF IMMIGRATION STUDIES, CATO INSTITUTE: Thanks for having me on.
VAUSE: Okay. So when it comes to trying to control the number of illegal border crossings into the U.S., you've argued in the past that, you know, tougher laws are often part of the problem, not part of the solution. Would you include this executive order by the President in that sort of equation?
BIER: Absolutely. This executive order is the perfect example of a enforcement-only policy that's going to have adverse consequences for people at the border for border security, for all of the outcomes that people say they want when they want enforcement.
It's going to make all those problems worse, because now rather than people turning themselves in to request asylum, you're going to have huge numbers of people trying to evade the Border Patrol, lead them on car chases, or scaling the wall, and forcing them into confrontation with Border Patrol.
All of these things are unwanted consequences, both for the Border Patrol, for border residents. It will lead to more chaos, more illegality. And it's not in the best interest of the United States. It's not in the best interest of anyone in this situation.
So, again, you're looking at the policy in and of itself, people think you need a crackdown to solve it. In reality, the crackdown makes many of the problems that we see so much worse.
VAUSE: Once you listen to the Secretary of Homeland Security explaining how the Biden order is different to similar action, which was taken by Former President Donald Trump. Here he is.
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ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS, U.S. HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: President Trump shut down asylum altogether. What we are doing is cutting out the smugglers and deterring irregular migration in between our ports of entry, where it's so very dangerous and the crossings are illegal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BIER: So, the asylum process shuts down under the Biden order with a number of illegal crossing averages around 2,500 a day for a week. The daily average in December was more than 8,000; by March, just shy of 4,500; low again, 4,200 each day on average in April, which means once this goes into effect after midnight, the asylum process is essentially shut down on the southern border, which is precisely what Trump and the Republicans had wanted. So how is it different?
BIER: The main thing they can point to is that they let in a little bit more per month through legal crossing points. The Trump administration had imposed a cap on the number of people who can apply for legal entry at these legal crossing points.
The Biden administration has slightly increased that cap. But the reality is, since it's a cap, all the people that he's banning under this order have nowhere to go. There's not a single additional slot made available under the order for people to enter legally. So, of course, they're going to keep crossing illegally. There's no other option.
And so, that -- that's the fundamental flaw in this thinking that they're somehow so much better than the Trump administration. Well, the Trump administration had essentially the same policy, but there were fewer people trying to come. And so it's not really that different. And I think it's sort of a bad faith effort to justify what they're doing.
VAUSE: In an event (ph) from last year, you made this point. There is no path other than requesting asylum at the border that is available to the people who are coming up through Mexico to the United States. If ending illegal immigration was the goal, the government could simply let them come legally.
And just to clarify, there is a legal process. It's just overly bureaucratic. It's time consuming. It's cumbersome. And for all intents and purposes, it just isn't seen as a viable option for many immigrants. Right?
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BIER: Well, I mean, it literally is not an option for the people who are coming to the border. I mean, you can play the lottery and say, well, there's a Green Card lottery and there's 22 million people who apply for it and 55,000 slots. That is your option if you're coming up from these -- many of these countries. In many of these countries, even the lottery is unavailable. So the reality is, if you look at the totality of all the options, all
the legal options that are out there, we grant 3 percent of all the applicants' Green Cards per year. So, 3 percent of all the applicants will be approved. It's almost entirely for close relatives of U.S. citizens. So if you don't have a U.S. citizen close relative, you're out of luck. And you might as well not even try.
So, that's the reality of our legal immigration system. And for the people who are coming to the border, there's really no option for them, and they know it. And that's why they're coming to the border, because that's how they know everyone who's come to the border has had a better chance of getting in than the people who stayed in their home country, that's who, they know, have gotten into the United States, not the people who have tried to apply for a visa.
VAUSE: Thank you so much for being with us, and we appreciate your time and your insights.
BIER: Thank you.
VAUSE: A bittersweet election for India's Narendra Modi. He won an historic third term as Prime Minister, but many voters turned on the ruling party, the BJP. Instead of securing a supermajority of more than 400 of the 543 seats in parliament, as Modi had boldly predicted, final results show the party actually lost more than 60 seats and its outright majority, which means the BJP is relying on coalition partners to remain in power.
All up, the Modi alliance now has 292 seats, a parliamentary buffer of 20, a stunning and perhaps humbling result for Modi, who claimed he was sent by God to govern.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MODI (Interpreted): We Indians will walk together toward the development of the country. And in this third term, the country will write a new chapter of big decisions.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: The opposition bloc, a coalition of more than 30 parties, which includes the India Congress Party, ended up with 234 seats.
CNN's Ivan Watson has been following this election, which saw more than 640 million people vote over the six weeks.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The world's largest election is now over. And just hours into the massive vote count, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's followers were already partying.
WATSON (on-camera): Supporters are celebrating here at the headquarters of the BJP. And it does look like Narendra Modi will govern for another term. But it does not seem that he has won the landslide victory he predicted, which suggests he'll govern the weaker electoral mandate.
WATSON (voice-over): At a rally in the capital, Modi declared victory even though for the first time in a decade, his party failed to win a majority of seats in parliament. Modi will have to form a coalition government if he is to continue to rule.
The opposition say they've hurt the powerful Prime Minister.
RAHUL GANDHI, INDIAN NATIONAL CONGRESS: The country has unanimously and clearly stated we do not want Mr. Narendra Modi and Mr. Amit Shah to be involved in the running of this country. We do not like the way they have run this country. We do not appreciate the way they have attacked the Constitution.
WATSON (voice-over): Modi's opponents accused the Prime Minister of limiting freedom of speech and press with crackdowns on political rivals. Modi and his party have also targeted India's Muslim minority with Islamophobic rhetoric.
MODI (Interpreted): Do you think your hard-earned money should be given to infiltrators?
WATSON (voice-over): Modi's brand of Hindu nationalism may have reached its limit. His party's candidate lost in Ayodhya, the town where he inaugurated a controversial new Hindu temple on the site of a demolished mosque.
Modi is still seen by many as the business-friendly steward of the world's fifth largest economy. Indian stock markets plunged more than 5 percent on Tuesday upon news of Modi's lacklustre election results.
Though weakened, Modi is still the most powerful and polarizing politician India has seen in generations.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Ahead here on CNN. Remembering a massacre which China wants to forget, around the world, many are stopping to remember the Tiananmen Square uprising. But in China, or Mainland China, many have no idea what even happened. More on that in a moment.
Also ahead, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, the Labour opposition leader, went head-to-head in their first TV debate Tuesday. We'll look at how they went and then their plans to revive the economy. That's next.
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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Less than a month before the U.K.'s July 4th general election, the British Prime Minister took on the Labour Party opposition leader in a challenging first debate. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer went head- to-head on who is best to handle some of the country's biggest problems, including the economy, immigration, healthcare, and the world (ph) the least. And they struck to -- they stuck to party lines rather with Sunak saying he's the only one who can salvage the economy, Starmer blaming conservatives for mishandling the economy for 14 years.
He's some of what happened.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
RISHI SUNAK, BRITISH PRIME MINISTER: We've heard a lot about the cost- of-living challenges today. So I have made some decisions, bold decisions, that will mean that we can save all of you thousands of pounds, still meet our targets, and we can ensure our country's energy security.
KEIR STARMER, BRITISH LABOUR PARTY LEADER: We will raise specific taxes and we've been really clear what they are. The oil and gas companies should be paying their fair share towards our energy. So we will raise those, so we won't raise the other.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Look, rivals are pouring cold water on Nigel Farage's plans to return to politics. Someone literally doused the Brexiteer with a milkshake during his campaign launch, hit him in the face. Farage says he will run as a candidate for parliament, representing the hard-right Reform Party in the July 4th election. Farage was not hurt by the milkshake, just kind of wet and soggy and sticky. 25-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of throwing the alleged milkshake. There she is.
We'd just stay away from the second largest election in the world, starting Thursday. 27 European member states will choose lawmakers for the European Parliament, but it's anything but a straightforward choice. The EU is increasingly splitted and the geopolitical landscape is drastically different in part due to the war in Ukraine.
Details now from CNN's Barbie Nadeau.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This concludes this unique transnational democratic exercise.
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN JOURNALIST, ROME (voice-over): The world is a very different place since European Parliamentary elections were held back in 2019. A global pandemic, two major wars including one in Europe, and the subsequent rise in energy costs. Farmers frustrated by EU red tape and cheap imports, dumping manure in Brussels. A worsening climate with activists attacking cultural gems from Paris to Venice. And a cost-of-living crisis are all among the issues facing Europe's 373 million eligible voters.
These elections are the second largest in the world after India and considerably bigger than the upcoming American vote.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: 99 amendments by the committee responsible as a bloc of voters in favor. NADEAU (voice-over): between June 6th and 9th, voters in 27 European
countries will choose the 720 lawmakers to shape an increasingly splintered Europe for the next five years.
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LORENZO DE SIO, PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, LUISS UNIVERSITY, ROME: European elections are important, because in EU member countries, nowadays a lot of important strategic decisions are taken at the European level.
This is why the election of the European Parliament, which is the only directly elected body of Europe is so important. Policymaking in Europe is more complex, and the election of the European Parliament is only part of that. As a result, usually we record lower turnout than in national elections.
NADEAU (voice-over): Creating a functioning parliament when Europe is making a hard rightward shift won't be easy.
The first difficult task of the parliament is choosing the President of the European Commission. With the current President center-right German Ursula von der Leyen leading most polls.
For the incumbent to win, she has to slalom between her center-right European People's Party and the increasingly popular far-right parties of Giorgia Meloni and Marine Le Pen to secure the newly elected parliament support.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You are preparing to work together with the ECR with --
URSULA VON DER LEYEN, EUROPEAN COMMISSION PRESIDENT: That's not what I've said. I want to be very clear, this is not what I've said.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay.
VON DER LEYEN: I'm speaking about members of the European Parliament. I want to see where they group themselves. And then we work with the groups that are clearly, clearly pro-European, pro-Ukraine against Putin --
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Okay.
VON DER LEYEN: -- and for the rule of law.
NADEAU (voice-over): A far-right with more members could greatly influence how Europe deals with political priorities, like how to share the burden of irregular migration and what exactly to do about artificial intelligence and regulating big tech against a more assertive China and the United States.
The European Union will need the parliament to set a clear path, but with balancing the wide-ranging needs of voters against the goals of divergent parties. Approving legislation with a fractured parliament will be complex. The stakes for Europe and beyond couldn't be higher. Barbie Latza Nadeau, CNN, Rome.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
VAUSE: Tuesday marked 35 years since Beijing's crackdown on pro- democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square. In Hong Kong, where memorials were once held each year but are now no longer allowed, four people were arrested.
In the Chinese capital, security was heavy, but for most, it was just another day. Government censors have erased almost all trace of the bloodshed ever happening. No death toll was ever released.
Taiwan remains the last corner of the Chinese-speaking world where victims are honored in public. Hundreds took part in a candlelight vigil in Taipei. Some attendees flying in from Hong Kong.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE (Interpreted): In the past, it has been possible to organize this June 4th event and to discuss this matter in Hong Kong. In fact, to a certain extent, it represented that Hong Kong was a city with freedom of speech, human rights, and it's a place that we could face this part of history.
But when the city can no longer even maintain these rights, that thing that represents the value of the city, and until now, when all starts to deteriorate, we can witness this as a historical change.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: CNN's Will Ripley following this live for us from Taipei.
Will, what is truly terrifying in a very Orwellian way is the government censors on Mainland China have actually raised all trace of this ever happening. There is a generation of people growing up in Mainland China who have no idea who the tankman is, have no idea this even took place.
WILL RIPLEY, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And as we're speaking right now, John, in China, CNN's live signal has once again been cut off. You see bars and tone every time we even mentioned the words, Tiananmen Square.
I have friends who grew up in China, who then went to university in the United States. Educated people who are on the Internet, on social media, they had no idea Tiananmen Square happened until they left China and learned about it in other countries, whether it be the U.S. or Europe, wherever they studied.
That's certainly not the case here in democratic Taiwan, where 2,000 people gathered for that moment of silence here in the Taiwanese capital. They lit up candles, saying, 8964, a reference, of course, to June 4th, 1989, when, as you said, an untold number of people, hundreds, perhaps thousands, were massacred by the People's Liberation Army. These were young students, some of the brightest minds in China of their time, who were silenced. And then their story, their history, essentially erased.
In Hong Kong, I remember when I first moved there a number of years ago, you could have easily over 100,000 people at a Tiananmen Square memorial gathering at Victoria Park, but all of that stopped in 2020.
They initially said, John, it was because of COVID restrictions, but nobody is even making that excuse anymore. They just flat out ban any sort of gathering to remember Tiananmen Square. And that's why we saw those two men and two women arrested in Hong Kong, ages 23 to 69.
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But when you think about the summer of 2019 and the Tiananmen Square memorial of that year, when there were at times a million people marching through the streets of Hong Kong, fighting for democracy and to see how quickly, with the stroke of a pen essentially and a boosted-up police presence in Hong Kong, essentially turning that vibrant city into a police city, a police state, or a police territory of China, if you will.
That's something that they say here in Taiwan, which China has long had this claim, even though Taiwan elects its own government, the people have elected a president who has spoken in the past about the sovereignty of this democracy.
They obviously are trying to show the world that in this Chinese- speaking democracy, they still remember what happened at Tiananmen, even with Chinese military drills and regular military activity albeit in the skies with warplanes or in the seas with warships just miles from the Taiwanese coast, John.
VAUSE: It's truly cowardly that they would not own the past and they try to erase it for the future. And a shout-out to CNN's Jonathan Schaer, who shot those images of tankman all those years ago, CNN cameraman there.
Will Ripley in Taipei, thank you, sir.
When we come back, large fire ripping through Northern Israel after cross-border fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah militants in Southern Lebanon. We'll have the IDF's new warning in a moment.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
VAUSE: Wherever you are around the world, welcome back. You're watching CNN Newsroom. I'm John Vause. Back now to our top story. India's Narendra Modi has won a historic third term as Prime Minister, but his BJP party has failed to secure a supermajority of more than 400 of the 400 -- of the 543 seats in parliament, as he boldly predicted. Instead, the final results showed the party actually lost 63 seats and its outright majority, which means the BJP is relying on coalition partners to remain in power.
Joining us this hour now from New York is Ravi Agrawal, Editor-in- Chief of Foreign Policy and host of FP Live, the magazine's video channel and podcast. Ravi, it's been a while. Good to see you. Thanks for being with us.
RAVI AGRAWAL, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, FOREIGN POLICY: Likewise.
VAUSE: So, three days before the official results were actually announced, a day before the first vote had even been counted, Modi tweeted on X this. I can say with confidence that the people of India have voted in record numbers to re-elect the NDA government. NDA is Modi's coalition, the National Democratic Alliance.
That tweet didn't really age very well, but perhaps it reveals in part what may have gone wrong for Modi. He -- was he overly confident even though he'd been sent by God, as he claimed during a recent interview?
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AGRAWAL: He was overly confident. He thought that he would come back to power, as you pointed out, with a huge majority, a landslide majority, the likes of which has never been seen before in India. But not only him. The markets felt that he would return with a majority, and so did exit polls. So across the board, it seems like everyone seems to have overestimated how well the BJP could do and underestimated how the opposition was going to perform.
In some senses, I think what the Indian voter seems to be telling the world and the Indian public is that it's been ignored, is that things like inequality, things like unemployment have been issues that have lingered. Inflation has been punishing over the last few years. And those are all things it seems like people are trying to rise up and say, well, what about us? And that's what we're seeing in the votes.
VAUSE: Well, the opposition work (ph), which is made up of more than 30 political parties. They're called the Indian National Development Inclusive Alliance. The final results are in. They've won more than, what, 230 seats, much better than the most optimistic polls had predicted.
Now, is there any chance at all that they could actually form a working coalition government?
AGRAWAL: An extremely slim chance. I mean, worthy to do so. It would take defections from the NDA, the BJP's alliance. It would mean that they'd have to cobble together, you know, a patchwork of parties that really don't know have that much in common, beyond the fact that they were trying to oppose the BJP.
Were they to try to cobble together a majority, then you'd have the usual horse trading of who gets to be prime minister, who gets to control various levers of government. It's very messy, very difficult. It's far, far, far more likely that the BJP would be able to cobble together a majority, which it already has with the NDA.
It's just that this is uncharted territory for Modi, who's never had to do this before. Even when he was chief minister in the state of Gujarat, his party has always returned a majority. So he's never had to share power. He's never had to try and look at what various partners might want from the government. He's -- he's always gone it alone. So this is new for him.
And hence, I think the shock of this for him, for his party, for the Indian markets, as well, which is why, by the way, stocks declined by more than 5 percent on Tuesday on the news, essentially wiping out all of their gains from 2024. This is a real shock to the system.
VAUSE: Well, after the results came in, Modi was still talking about victory. Just not his. Here he is.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
NARENDRA MODI, INDIAN PRIME MINISTER (through translator): This victory is a win for the world's largest democracy. This is a win of the country's loyalty to the constitution. This is a win for a developed India, a win for India's 1.4 billion people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
VAUSE: Yes, it is a win, but it feels like a defeat.
So, you know, we touched on this. What does this actually mean for the next five years? Does he reverse course on his Hindu-first policies, back off on the hate speech? Is there moderation in the future, something which Modi isn't really known for?
AGRAWAL: Exactly. There would have to be motivation. For example, a couple of the parties that are part of his alliance are avowedly secular. They would obviously want to rein in the very worst tendencies of Modi, to try and be a Hindu majoritarian leader.
Also, Modi has, in the past, shunned parliamentary debate. He's been increasingly authoritarian. He would have to change those tendencies. He'd have to listen to his partners. He'd have to share power. This is new for him.
Those are all things you could expect to change, were he to form a government, which at this point, is what the numbers suggests will happen.
All of that said, I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. The BJP has won the most number of seats. Modi, were he to form a government, will be reelected for a third consecutive term, which hasn't happened in India since 1962.
Modi remains very popular. He is still the most popular singular leader in the country.
And when it comes to policy, I don't think that much would change. Sure, he might tamp down some of the pro-Hindu policies. But if you think of the other elements and planks of his government -- welfarism, for example, subsidies and stops (ph) for the poor. Free food, free gas. All of that is unlikely to change. And nor will the government's development agenda, focusing very heavily on infrastructure; focusing on building roads and airports. All of that is unlikely to change, as well.
Lastly, the thing that won't change at all is India's foreign policy. India's become more sensitive, more muscular in its foreign policy over the last decade or so. That's part of a trend. It's very popular locally. And no matter who's in power, I don't expect that to change.
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VAUSE: Ravi, thank you so much for being with us, for staying up late. We really appreciate your time, as well as your insights. Good to see you.
AGRAWAL: Pleasure.
VAUSE: Large fires in Northern Israel are under control after first responders spent all of Tuesday battling flames. Nearly two dozen teams, including an air squadron, were deployed amid changing winds and high temperatures.
Israeli officials blamed Hezbollah rocket attacks from across the border in Southern Lebanon for starting the fires, which burned 400 hectares and prompted some evacuations.
Thousands of people in Northern Israel have been displaced since the cross-border fighting erupted in the wake of the October 7 Hamas attacks on Israel. During a tour of some of the most heavily damaged areas, the Israel Defense Force's chief of staff said the military is prepared to ramp up operations if called on.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MAJ. GEN. HERZI HALEVI, ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES CHIEF OF STAFF (through translator): The IDF is prepared and very ready for this decision. We have been striking here for eight months, and Hezbollah is paying a very, very high price.
Hezbollah has increased its attacks in recent days. And we are prepared to move to an offensive in the North.
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VAUSE: Meantime, officials from the United States, Egypt, and Qatar are set to meet in Doha in the coming hours to work on a possible ceasefire in Gaza.
The White House says CIA Director Bill Burns is expected to get an update on Qatar's extensive discussions with Hamas leaders. The U.S. is urging Israel and Hamas to accept the latest proposal outlined by President Joe Biden last Friday.
One Hamas official says any deal must include a permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.
The Israeli military launched a new ground and air assault in central Gaza Tuesday, targeting what it says were Hamas militants. Gaza's Ministry of Health says the operation killed 15 Palestinians, including a 12-year-old boy, and wounded dozens of others.
In a moment here on CNN, some of the last living veterans of World War II are returning to France, marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day. We'll have a report from Normandy.
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VAUSE: Eighty years ago, they stormed the beaches of Normandy in France. Tens of thousands of young men from the United States, Britain, Canada, and other allied countries, an invasion which marked the beginning of the end of Hitler's Nazi Germany.
If they failed, there was no Plan B.
Now, those young men, the ones who are still alive, are old veterans; and they're returning to France to observe D-Day. And CNN's Melissa Bell reports now from Normandy.
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MELISSA BELL, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): From the other side of the Atlantic, they returned to the continent they'd liberated a lifetime ago.
Some of the last living American World War II veterans struggling with the steps. But not with their memories of June 6, 1944.
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ARLESTER BROWN, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: I felt that mankind had lost its way.
BELL (voice-over): Eighty years on, the veterans arrived to a hero's welcome and with a distinct twinkle in their eye.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Beautiful day. Nice girls like you, so we're satisfied.
BELL: These are the shores where the men landed, taking the first faltering steps towards the liberation of France and of Europe. The very youngest veterans expected here this week are 96, which means they were just 16 at the time and had to lie about their age in order to be allowed to fight.
BELL (voice-over): The first of the more than 100,000 men that landed in Normandy on June 6, came by air, ferried through the darkness into the unknown.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We took off at 2:30 in the morning, completely blackout take-off. You remember things like that.
BELL (voice-over): The paratroopers' planes still fly today. The memories of the men who've now passed, kept alive on recordings like these.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everybody was very quiet. No conversation, no jocularity. Nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I always thought god was with me.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When the green light went on, we went out right then.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Eighteen men are going out that door in 11 seconds
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I'm lucky I'm alive.
BELL (voice-over): But even for those who survived, the cost has been unimaginable.
NEAL MCCALLUM, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: My mother and father gave you my four elder brothers. We lost one, and he's buried in Lorraine.
BELL: Beyond those few returning here this week, the last living witnesses of what happened here, the 80th anniversary of D-Day, is mainly about those who never left.
BELL (voice-over): Their memory honored with sand taken from the beaches where they landed and died for the freedom of people they'd never met in a country they'd never seen.
Melissa Bell, CNN, Normandy.
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VAUSE: One veteran scheduled to return to Normandy as part of the Canadian delegation didn't make the flight. William Cameron passed away Sunday.
Canada's Veterans Affairs Ministry made the announcement on X. Cameron was an anti-aircraft gunner aboard a Canadian corvette warship during D-Day. He received France's Legion of Honor back in 2015, and the French consulate in Vancouver says he will never be forgotten.
He was 100 years old.
Thank you for watching CNN NEWSROOM. I'm John Vause. I'll be back at the top of the hour with more CNN NEWSROOM. Meantime, please stay with us. WORLD SPORT starts after very short break. Be back in less than 17, 18 minutes.
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