tom, what have you found? reporter: we know that a variety of these organizations, as you mentioned, toss around big numbers, putting his personal fortune between $40 and $75 billion. these could be way, way off. it just doesn t fit in very well with what we know about other rich people in the world. for example, forbes says the richest man in the world right now is this mexican telecom owner, his wealth is estimated at almost $54 billion. so look at that, $54 billion, versus $70 billion. this would make mubarak the richest man in the world right now. that raises some eyebrows and makes people say maybe this isn t quite right. the egyptian constitution says the salary of the presidential be fixed by law. he may not receive any other salary, may not exercise any
those numbers involve a lot of guess work. these could be way, way off. this high end estimate, it just doesn t fit in very well with what we know about other rich people in the world. for example, forbes says the richest man in the world right now is this mexican telecom owner, his wealth is estimated at almost $54 billion. so look at that, $54 billion, versus $70 billion. this would make mubarak the richest man in the world right now. that raises some eyebrows and makes people say maybe this isn t quite right. but look at another part of this. the egyptian constitution says the salary of the president shall be fixed by law. he may not receive any other salary, may not exercise any profession or undertake financial or industrial activity and on and on it goes. obviously, there are a lot of questions whether or not he pays attention to the constitution.
but if it can compete and if you elect the mayor aswan, then he ll have to get water through the pipes, he ll have to make it work. my bet is he won t and the party will do worse. fareed, the key question is has president obama made the right moves here? are we right to keep mubarak in place for this orderly as it can be transition? is this the way to make it work for everybody? or some senators are breaking ranks. i speak to one senator later in the show, he says mubarak should go right now. what do you think? i think at the end of the day, the administration is handling it roughly right. they made a few mistakes on the tactical issues. they re trying to push a process of change, but not one that s so fast or chaotic that it produces results we don t want. there is a fair point which is, the vice president doesn t take over under the egyptian
turn-out, whether there were a million people or close to a million people on the streets today. i don t know. but it is clear that the rallying cry is that the egyptian people want this president to go. so i think the real key is, how you put a process in place with time deadlines, that moves along. and provides a new government at the end of the process. as quickly as you possibly can. do you think that that can be done? that those guarantees of something, so that there isn t a total vacuum and there are political organizations and a process for election, can that happen within weeks? or at the most, months? or do we have to wait until september, as mubarak says he prefers? well from my reading, andrea, it s a bit tricky. because the constitution is very precise. the egyptian constitution. and that is, that if the president is unable for one reason or another to continue to serve, that the speaker would
told that the military promises to protect the people and to protect stability. they re being told those things. unfortunately they can t see what we can t see in the united states, the images that would back them up because of the blackout and the crackdown on journalists. look, we first talked about this on tuesday night, the administration wants president mubarak to go. they want him to go within days, not weeks or months. and they want him to cede power to his vice president. and to have the backing of the military. the egyptian government, including that vice president, today said no. they don t like the outside interference, and some of the egyptians have raised constitutional questions saying the vice president can t secede the president under the egyptian constitution. however, the nudges continue. the administration knows it can t dictate this, anderson. but secretary clinton talked to the vice president last night. it was vice president biden in the united states who talked t