night local time. look at this. as you remember, from the scene this time yesterday, egyptians by the hundreds of thousands embracing the fall of their religiously oriented government. the first elected government ever overthrown. so what now? well, this is the new leader. his name is adlai monsieur. he is a judge. he is temporary tasked with leading an interim government and organizing elections. keep in mind he was hand selected by the military. his appointment announced by general abdell fattah asisi. we saw asisi speaking yesterday. he rolled out the tanks yesterday in support of all of those protesters. and later announced the ouster of egypt s first elected leader, mohamed morsi. morsi, president yesterday,
which you know is so diverse and multiethnic and concessional. what is remarkable, if you will remember when mubarak was overthrown and the military defense minister took the podium. well, he was alone. look at what asisi has done. he took the podium and he was flanked by the secular leadership, mohamed baradei. the head of the coptic church. the director of the university. the highest voice in sunni islam. and others. and even islamist parties that are not affiliated with the muslim brotherhood. so there s something different happening here. it s not just a military move. it s a military move that s bringing together, if you will, the non-muslim brotherhood elements of the core
it takes us dying, to the last drop of blood. you have incredible polarization right now, wolf, between the people here who are celebrating the suspension of the egyptian constitution and those who voted for mohamed morsi. some of whom who are saying, at least, that they re willing to die for him to stay in office. wolf? you just heard the announcement from the top military leader in egypt, general abdell fattah. he made it official, morsi, mohamed morsi, the democratically elected president of egypt, no longer the president of egypt right now. we do not know his whereabouts. we do not know his condition. we do not know if he s under house arrest or anything along those lines. the only thing we know is what the general told us, general asisi making it clear that there is now a new roadmap. there will be new elections. and this process will go forward. in the meantime, the constitution of egypt has been suspended.
on the roof of a mosque overlooking the main stage. so the military is about 400 yards, 500 yards down this road here. but we can t see it. but we re hearing it from people who are there. ben, stand by for a moment. i want to bring back fareed zakaria. fareed, the ambassador made an important point. that the egyptian military, general asisi made a point of surrounding himself with the leader of the el azhar university. one of the major muslim universities in egypt, of course. the leader of the copts, and mohammed elbaradei. seemingly wanting to give the egyptian military some cover that this is not strictly a military coup. what do you make of this? i think he s exactly right, that they have tried to portray this as a kind of restoration of
president morsi. just about an hour ago, word came that they d reached their goal. president morsi no longer the leader of this government. and when it comes to the transition to the next government, this country has had one shot at it. it has had some practice. it obviously didn t work out. but perhaps they ve learned some lessons. maybe the next transition will be a little smoother. there s obviously a lot of taukt about the reaction, the possibility reaction from the muslim brotherhood. will there be a backlash from the muslim brotherhood? it s important to know the speech tonight delivered by abdell fattah asisi, he was flanked by a number of very conservative religious leader. they can certainly play a critical role in this, in easing the tension, in convincing the islamists, the supporters of president mohamed morsi, now former president mohamed morsi,