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CNN This Morning

Four Israeli Hostages Rescued By IDF in Gaza; Macron Dissolves France's Parliament and Calls for Snap Elections After Historic Gains for the Far-Right in the EU; Trump Steps onto Campaign Trail for the First Time Since His Conviction. Aired 5-5:30a ET

Aired June 10, 2024 - 05:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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KASIE HUNT, ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING: It's Monday, June 10th right now on CNN THIS MORNING. Four Gaza hostages rescued by Israeli Defense Forces in an operation that also killed scores of Palestinians. French President Emmanuel Macron dissolving his country's parliament and calling for snap elections after historic gains for the far-right in the European Union.

And one line seems to say so much about the state of U.S. politics right now. The presumptive GOP nominee meeting today with his probation officer. All right, 5:00 a.m. here in Washington, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Monday morning. Good morning, everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt, it's wonderful to have you with us.

New details this morning about the Israeli military operation that rescued four Israeli civilians held by Hamas.

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HUNT: This new video edited and provided by the Israeli military appears to show some Israeli soldiers escorting the rescued hostages toward military helicopters on a beach in Gaza. These four Israelis now reunited with their families and just beginning to recover from their months of captivity.

Among those rescued, 26-year-old Noa Argamani, whose abduction during the October 7th attack was captured on tape. Noa screamed for help as she was forced by Hamas members onto the back of a motorcycle and driven into Gaza.

The IDF raid also resulting in the deadliest day of the war in six months. At least 274 people killed according to Gazan health officials. The IDF disputes those numbers saying that the number of casualties was under 100. CNN can't independently verify the death toll, and we don't yet know how many of those killed were Hamas fighters and how many were civilians. But we do know that the hostages were being held in residential homes

in a densely-populated area. CNN also learning this morning that some IDF soldiers disguised themselves as Hamas fighters and displaced Palestinians to conduct the raid. Joining me now to discuss is CNN political and national security analyst David Sanger.

David, good morning, I'm very grateful to have you here. For folks just tuning in after the weekend, a very dramatic time for the Israelis here with this raid. How do you see the fallout here as we see these hostages reunited with their families, but we also try to figure out to count the dead among the Palestinians.

DAVID SANGER, CNN POLITICAL & NATIONAL SECURITY ANALYST: Well, good morning, Kasie. And I think you've captured it right? It was an incredibly dramatic weekend. And I think there are three salient points about the rescue.

The first is the operation itself was a miracle of terrific Intelligence, great covert work in getting in there and getting them out. And you know, certainly something to be celebrated. There are more than 100 hostages left, but this was clearly a big win on Saturday morning when this all took place.

The second is, once again, it came at a great human cost as many Israeli operations in Gaza have, and this is the sort of brutal calculus of this, which is, you know, maybe it was under 100 Palestinians dead, maybe it was over 200 as the Palestinians say, but the fact of the matter is that we saw a huge number of Palestinian deaths in order to accomplish the long-sought release of these four.

And that seems to sum up much of what's happened during the war. And I think the third thing we're discovering as you know, Monday morning rolls in here, is that after this dramatic weekend, the rescue did very little to change the fundamentals of the problem that Israel faces.

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Benny Gantz; the former Defense Minister and head of IDF took a day off or pushed an extra day because of the rescue, but resigned from the war cabinet, shattering that view of unity. And he did so saying that Prime Minister Netanyahu does not have a plan for the day after for administering Gaza.

HUNT: Yes, David, in fact, let me pause you there because I did want to get to that next with you, and we have a little bit from Gantz over the weekend and what he said, how he explained why he was leaving the war cabinet. Let's watch.

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BENNY GANTZ, FORMER ISRAELI WAR CABINET MINISTER (through translator): Regrettably, Netanyahu is preventing us from advancing toward true victory, which is the justification for the ongoing and painful cost of war. That is why we are leaving the emergency government today with a heavy heart, but with full confidence. I call on Netanyahu, set an agreed election date. Don't allow our people to get torn apart.

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HUNT: So, David, he said there that Netanyahu is preventing us from advancing towards true victory. What is he really getting at here? Because he also seem to suggest that Netanyahu was unnecessarily prolonging the war.

SANGER: Right, and this has been a long-held view including among American officials that Prime Minister Netanyahu knows that once the war is over, or at least a ceasefire takes place and the active fighting is done, the investigations into October 7th begin in earnest.

The Intelligence failures, Israel obviously had a good deal of Intelligence. This would happen that it did not respond to, the IDF's failures, that Israeli Defense Force in responding that day, and the assumption is that Prime Minister Netanyahu could not survive that.

And of course, one of the beneficiaries could well be Benny Gantz himself, who ran against the Prime Minister a few years ago laws, but today, he's doing well enough in the polls, it is not inconceivable that he could emerge victorious, also, not certain.

But what we're seeing now is the United States with Benny Gantz's help tried to get the Israelis to commit to what President Biden called an Israeli proposal for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange, and get Hamas most importantly to agree to it may be difficult, more difficult -- it was difficult before the rescue, it may be more difficult now.

And overnight, Kasie, the U.S. has finally decided to go to the United Nations Security Council with a ceasefire and hostage exchange proposal, basically the one the president laid out ten days ago and try to get their approval of it to up the pressure on both Hamas and Israel.

HUNT: Very interesting set of developments here. David, very briefly. Does this move by Gantz not push Netanyahu farther into the arms of the right-wing in Israel?

SANGER: It does. He's got a very narrow majority he's holding onto. He didn't need Gantz's party to stay in. He needed Gantz's credibility to some degree that deal with the U.S. and the rest of the world. But if Netanyahu agrees to the Israeli plan, which came out of the war cabinet, not out of the political atmosphere and the coalition he's put together, those right wingers have threatened to leave the government. That would bring about a government collapse.

HUNT: All right, David Sanger for us this morning. David, very grateful to have you kicking us off today, I really appreciate it.

SANGER: Great to be with you.

HUNT: Coming up next here, French President Emmanuel Macron calling for new elections after the European Union takes a hard shift to the right. We'll explain. Plus, a shooting in a Wisconsin rooftop party leaves ten people injured. And Donald Trump at his first campaign rally since becoming a convicted felon.

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HUNT: All right, welcome back. After four days of European parliamentary elections being held across 27 countries, we're seeing a major shift to the right in Europe. The center-right European People's Party now projected to be in the majority.

Protesters taken to the streets in Paris Sunday after the far-right in France scored an unprecedented 31.5 percent of the vote. And the French President Emmanuel Macron dissolved parliament, called for snap elections.

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EMMANUEL MACRON, PRESIDENT, FRANCE (through translator): It is a situation to which I cannot resign myself. The rise of nationalists and demagogues is a danger not only for our nation, but also for our Europe and for France's place in Europe and the world.

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HUNT: All right, joining us now is CNN international anchor Max Foster who joins us now live from London. Max, good morning to you. This is a bit of a complicated situation for folks in the U.S. who don't necessarily follow the ins and outs of the European parliamentary elections.

But big picture is that we have seen kind of across the continent these far-right parties surging in a way that has really concerned the sort of center right majority governing parties. And it so much so that you saw Emmanuel Macron take this pretty significant action.

It's a risk for him to do this. Why is he doing it and how does it help explain the big picture of what we're seeing here?

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MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Yes, a lot of people are quite baffled because, you know, off the back of an European election where in France at least, the far-right did extremely well. He's now going into another election. He called it and it's going to benefit the right.

Many would argue because they can ride on that momentum, but he is effectively saying he wants to hand it over to the French people who he believes are generally moderate and of his point of view. So, he can prove that the European election, which is often a protest vote for European voters, won't actually hold in national elections.

So, a massive risk, and I think even the people closest to him realize that, but we'll see how Marine Le Pen does out of that. Steadily over recent years, she's been increasing in authority and power, and she's doing what many of the European parties are doing, which is focusing on immigration and Ukraine and also environment.

But on this basis that really resonates with a lot of people, which is that, the cost of living is getting worse and worse, inflation is going up, we can't afford to do all of those things. We have to hunker down a look at nationalism. And I think, you know, if you look at the overall parliamentary picture, then the moderates still hold it.

But in the key countries, the big economies, France, Germany and Italy, the far right, excelled. So, it's going to have a huge influence.

HUNT: Yes, I mean, we can put up on the screen for people to kind of see in color the way that this broke down in France. So, let's set aside the yellow, that's other, but that red piece which is clearly the most significant one for a named party, is the national rally.

Those are the right wingers, that 15 percent purple that you see, the renaissance party, purple, blue, that's Macron's party. And Max, to be clear, we saw something similar play out in Germany and in Italy. Can you talk a little bit about how this strengthens the more right- leaning leaders who are in office in Europe?

FOSTER: Well, you know, in Italy, we already got a right-wing prime minister, so she's empowered, and Marine Le Pen, as I say, she's been climbing steadily. In Germany, a lot of people would view that party now the second most powerful party in the country as, you know, traditionally a very far-right party.

So, it has huge influence because Germany and France and Italy are the three countries that have most influence over the European Union. I was interviewing a U.S. expert based here in the U.K. earlier on, and she was talking about how, you know, this will empower Trump effectively.

A lot of -- you know, the right was rising in Europe before Trump, but Trump managed to popularize the messaging, and they've adopted a lot of that. So, he certainly added energy to the rise of the right here in Europe. And it also means that the more senior these right-wing politicians become, the more, you know, contacts and power he has within Europe.

So, it's very empowering to him and his foreign policy. He creates alliances specifically for him within countries which were traditionally U.S. allies. So, it has a -- it will have a big impact on Trump if he gets into power, and it will cause a problem for Biden if he gets into power, because they're going to be much less supportive of him and his policies going forward.

HUNT: Yes, it's an interesting way to think about it. And I also think one of the things that Donald Trump has done that -- we remark on it, but I think perhaps not enough. And that is to normalize things that previously were considered out of bounds and the politics and the way we're thinking about politics.

I think you can really see that in some of these right-wing pushes, bringing things in that previously were considered to be forbidden or not acceptable on our stages. Max Foster for us in London, Max, thank you, always grateful to have you. Alright, coming up next, Cleveland police trying to uncover the origins of a cyber incident that's forcing them to close City Hall. Plus, President Biden preparing to celebrate Juneteenth with a little help from some friends.

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HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour, here's your morning round- up. Police in Madison, Wisconsin, looking for the gunman who injured at least ten people at a roof-top graduation party. The victims range in age from 14 to 23. A police chief calling it a miracle that no one was killed.

Police in Cleveland investigating a cyber incident that's keeping their City Hall closed today. Officials are only saying that they're trying to figure out the nature and scope of the incidents. And --

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HUNT: The White House hosting the "Godmother of Soul", Patti LaBelle at the Juneteenth concert on the South Lawn today, other artists attending include Gladys Knight, Charlie Wilson and Brittney Spencer. And oppressive heat ramping up across the West today while drought- stricken South Florida braces for rain and flooding this week. Our weatherman Derek Van Dam is here and he is tracking all of it for us. Derek, good morning.

DEREK VAN DAM, METEOROLOGIST: Yes, good morning Kasie. We've got Las Vegas, Sin City, it has had its hottest start in the month of June since records began, that's since 1937, eleven. Yes, that's not a typo, consecutive days where the mercury in the thermometer has reached 100 degrees or more.

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That is why we have our heat warnings in place for this area. And you know what? It's not just inclusive of Las Vegas, check out much of Arizona and into the Central Valley of California, the heat continues. We know it was hot last week, but it's going to ramp up through the course of this week as well. If you're in Phoenix, I was just there, we could go -- yes, it was sizzling as I stepped off the tarmac, and this is it, 14 consecutive days with temperatures above 100 degrees.

It's all thanks to that heat dome, remember that's an area of high pressure that really reduces cloud cover in the sky. So, you get maximum exposure from the sun, doesn't take much to heat things up, and we start to see this triple-digit heat blanket at the southwestern U.S.

Now, the other big story that we have on the docket for today is the flood threat that's going to be ongoing this week across the state of Florida, particularly across the southern portions of the peninsula. Watch this. There's a cold front approaching an abundant amount of tropical moisture moving in off the Gulf of Mexico that will bring wave after wave of heavy rainfall starting today, but ramping up through the week, look at Tuesday, Wednesday, into Thursday.

We know that it doesn't take much to flood the streets of Miami, well, guess what? More rainfall, we're talking up to locally, 10 inches of rain through this week for portions of the southwestern Florida peninsula that could bring some localized flooding to the area. So, from heat to heavy rain, we've got it all covered today for you today on Monday. Kasie?

HUNT: All right, our weatherman Derek Van Dam, Derek, see you next hour. Thanks very much.

VAN DAM: All right.

HUNT: Coming up next, new details about Israeli soldiers in disguise to pull off a daring hostage rescue. Plus, brand new polling. Are more voters turning to Biden because they just can't vote for Trump?

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