mubarak. mubar mubarak. who do you think should be the next president of egypt? anyone who the people here look to him. we have to have elections. we have to have democracy. our rights. we have no rights here in egypt before. but i think from this square, tahrir square, that freedom and justice and liberation and social reform? yes, all things come the first time. so are you sure that today hosni mubarak will go? hosni mubarak will go. but leave egypt. leave egypt egyptians.
there s no doubt there will be an explosion i think it s fair to say, an explosion of anger if in fact mubarak goes on television in the coming minutes and announces he s not stepping down. these folks who are dancing in the streets right now, they re chanting and they ve got the music going. they will be so angry, and i suspect folks all over egypt, this is a huge country of 80 million people. the anger level will just be huge right there. fred pleitgen is our correspondent. he s inside the square right now. i believe he s the only network television reporter who s reporting from tahrir square from on the ground right now. i want to remind viewers about 90 minutes or so ago, the president of the united states barack obama spoke and if you read between the lines of what president obama said, it sounds like it was all over. america will do everything to help an orderly and genuine transition to democracy in egypt. president obama said this is a moment of transformation, that
square. we re going to try to fix that microphone that ivan has. fred pleitgen, can you hear me? are you still there? you re at tahrir square, as well. certainly am, wolf. i can hear you very well. there s many people here waving the egyptian flag and listening to the egyptian national anthem. i have one man with me named muhammad. tell me what s this moment like for you? do you feel like this is a special moment for egypt? actually, it s a moment that we ve all been waiting for for too long. we ve been waiting for this day where we can enjoy our freedom, enjoy democracy that the rest of the world is enjoying. and actually start building our own country and deciding our own destiny for once in our lives. some of us lost hope over the years, but this brought it all back. reporter: did you ever i
we re back live. you re looking at live pictures an of tahrir square where tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people have now gathered in downtown cairo. they re anticipating that the egyptian president hosni mubarak will announce on egyptian television shortly is stepping down even though the official information minister of egypt said that the president is definitely not going to step down. so the mystery continues right now. we ll just have to wait and see what mubarak himself does, if he announces he s not stepping down, this crowd will explode in anger. as will so many other egyptians around the country. we want to welcome back viewers here in the united states and around the world. i m wolf blitzer. we re reporting for you on cnn and cnn international right now. anderson cooper is with us, as well.
foreigners wii behind some of what they see as they plots. did you notice those remarks? that has been a standard tactic. when elections we arehood, he claimed that amanour was an american agent. so this is quite family. what i was also struck by, as you noted before was the delusional quality to the speech. the idea that he spoke to egypt. what the crowd was telling him is would you take care of the people who did violence to us? he talked about the legitimate demands, but of course the number one demand is they leave. so this is a kind of bubble that s been created.