good morning. thanks so much for being with me. i m carol costello. it is 29 minutes past the hour. in the news this morning millions of egyptians are celebrating their own form of independence just hours after toppling an unpopular heavy-handed government. the military has placed ousted president mohamed morsi under house arrest. just a year ago morsi became egypt s first democratically elected president. cnn s ian lee is in cairo where yesterday s massive crowds have thinned. good morning, ian. good morning. yesterday s crowds were quite celebratory. i want to paint a picture for you. last night when they announced that the army was taking power from former president mohamed morsi, tahrir square erupted
let s go back to the white house. hi, athena. i understand the president is not calling what happened in egypt a coup. reporter: that s right, the president met yesterday with his national security team and after that he released a statement saying they are deeply concerned with the decision by the military in egypt to oust morsi and suspend the constitution and went on in that statement to say, i now call on the egyptian military to move quickly and responsibly to return full authority back to a democratically elected civilian government as soon as possible through an inclusive and transparent process and to avoid any arbitrary arrests of president morsi and his supporters. of course, we know now from the muslim brotherhood, from morsi supporters, that the former president is under house arrest, but this is one interesting word here, not just what the president was saying, not only said there should be a democratically elected government in place, but he didn t say the democraticall
egypt s top court sworn in former president mohammed morsi under house arrest and officials say egypt s generals arrested the leadership of the muslim brotherhood and warrants out for hundreds of other members. president obama calling on the military to quickly return power to a democratically elected government. the coup could affect more than a billion dollars a year in military aid the u.s. gives the country. wendell is live at the white house. what is the removal of morsi mean for u.s. aid to egypt? it s unclear right now but the president worded his statement very carefully. he avoided criticizing the military and daytona use the word coup which suggests he may by trying to work around a u.s. law which says the government must suspend support to any nation who is president
thank you, we ll speak with you on friday. thanks, martha. bill: just to give you an idea of how long all this has been doing on. abedini game a u.s. citizen through marriage. between 2009 and last year he had traveled to iran safely eight different times to work at his orphanage. on july 28th of last year he was mayed under house arrest by iranian authorities hopbl to be thrown in evin prison a few months later in september after guards railedded his home. january 20th of this year abedini allowed his first and only meeting with an iranian lawyer. he found out his fate a week later when he was sentenced to eight years in prison on charges of distributing national security by creating a network of christian churches in private homes in iran. martha: pastor abedini isn t the only fate we re learning b. former fbi agent robert levinson disappeared in 2007 working as a private investigator.
reporter: we don t know much. but we talked to somebody else who had been in home confinement for an interview i did yesterday and he told me he s probably spending a lot of his time speaking with lawyers. he s allowed four visitors at a time. we don t know what specifically is going on. you have to guess he s probably talking to his legal team about his defense. many say it is always, of course, a lot easier to fight the legal battles on your terms rather than a jail cell. in this case, he s allowed visitor, allowed to make phone calls to his legal team. so we can only assume that s what he s doing. whatever he s doing, he s under very strict surveillance. yes. a lot of cameras to boot. there is some reports of him hitting on other hotel personnel. what do you understand about that? reporter: yeah, according to published reports, just before the attack, he had hit on two other women inside that luxury manhattan hotel. the sofitel, asking a couple of front desk clerks out for dri