Return to Transcripts main page

Anderson Cooper 360 Degrees

Hosni Mubarak Near Death; G20 Summit Wraps Up; Jerry Sandusky Trial

Aired June 19, 2012 - 20:15   ET

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

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: Wolf, thanks very much. Yes, very big breaking news tonight. Egypt's deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak near death. Surprise testimony at the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse trial and talk about his wife taking the stand. And as you've just seen President Obama tonight wrapping up the G-20 summit in Los Cabos, Mexico. It dealt largely, as Wolf said, with Europe's economic meltdown. Also the crisis in Syria, especially China and Russia's role in it.

Where the economy is concerned, though, the summit could have a serious impact on U.S. jobs and perhaps whether the president gets to keep his job. A lot of ground for us to cover. Starting with some of what the president said tonight about the economy. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Now markets around the world, as well as governments, have been asking if Europe is ready to do what is necessary to hold the Eurozone together. Over the last two days, European leaders here in Cabos have made it clear that they understand the stakes and they pledged to take the actions needed to address this crisis and restore confidence, stability and growth.

Let me just be a little more specific. First, our friends in Europe clearly grasp the seriousness of the situation and are moving forward with a heightened sense of urgency. I welcome the important steps that they have already taken to promote growth, financial stability and fiscal responsibility.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: That's President Obama tonight at the G-20 summit just moments ago.

Let's get a quick first take with our panel, Republican strategist and veteran of many summits and many more news conference, Ari Fleischer. Democratic strategist Paul Begala who's currently advising the top pro-Obama super PAC. Foreign affairs correspondent Jill Dougherty. Also joins us, chief business correspondent, Ali Velshi, and national campaign correspondent John King.

John, first off to you. What do you make of what you've heard from the president tonight? JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: The president is trying to talk a good game, Anderson, but he acknowledged himself a lot of this is out of his control. He said, yes, the leaders in Europe get it. He thinks they're going to go about their work right away, but he also acknowledged it would take time which is why I said it's so important that they send positive signals for their markets right away.

But he acknowledged Europe's financial crisis going to take time. Then he also bluntly acknowledged that he's not on the same page with China. Now the president of the Security Council of the United Nations or Russia when it comes to Syria. Another situation the president would like to resolve. That is, in his own words tonight, Anderson, not in his control at the moment.

COOPER: Ali Velshi, on the money front, what did you hear?

ALI VELSHI, ANCHOR, CNN CHIEF BUSINESS CORRESPONDENT: Nothing. G-20s and summits like this go one way or another. People come away in some agreement or they come away saying they're going their own separate ways. That's exactly the latter is what happened here. The president didn't want to insult Russia or China as John said. He also didn't want to upset Europe.

Earlier today, Manuel Barroso, the EU president, came out and said, we're not looking to the U.S. for advise or guidance. You all started this mess so don't tell us how to fix it. The problem the president's got, he tried to answer in his first question, when he was asked about whether the slowing job situation in the U.S. could hurt his bid for the presidency. That's the reality.

The problem is that that storm that's brewing over in Europe where it's under way, raging in Europe, is now starting to hit our shores, the president needs to be tougher on Europe. And as you heard from his comments, he's not willing to be right now.

COOPER: Paul Begala, some tough words for Mitt Romney's advisers at the very least, talking about criticism of a president stopping the water's edge, the (INAUDIBLE) presidents he's ever seen.

PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Yes, now that's a tradition that's often honored in the breach. I thought that was sort of an easy one for the president to knock back. But I was really struck at how carefully he had to walk the line. He's got this G-20 divided between those who believe in austerity, budget cuts and those who believe in stimulus and growth. He tried to thread a line there so as not to defend -- offend any of his allies.

And then on Syria, I thought he was -- he was much tougher and he was much more candid where he said that I've talked to the Russians, I've talked to the Chinese, no progress there. And he's got the civilized world on one side, Russia, China, on the side of Assad. And I though, it does show that, as John pointed out, he can't dictate these things. But I thought he did a very good job of the detail and the nuance and the mastery of just how difficult these global summits are. COOPER: Ari?

ARI FLEISCHER, CNN POLITICAL CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I have sat in on a number of these summits and the fact is, and this is the case here in Mexico, these summits are often some of the most profoundly unproductive things anybody on earth can ever attend. And this was one of them. And I don't blame that on President Obama. It's just the nature of bringing 20 leaders together with tremendously diverse points of view. And especially when the issues in Europe are as complicated and they divide Europeans, the way they're divided over what to do.

The one thing that jumped out of me on the domestic agenda is, the president did the threading of the needle, as Paul put it, talked about here in the United States, we can do something such as hire more teachers. Once again, the president sees the solution as more government spending, more stimulus.

He comes squarely on the side of the stimulus in 2009 was the right thing to do. We need another stimulus. That I think is a real domestic problem for him. The stimulus, the first stimulus didn't work. He's not running on it. He doesn't brag about it. But he keeps saying we need more government spending to put more people on government payroll. I think that's a real problem for him going into this reelection.

COOPER: Well, his supporters would say that it worked to the extent that we didn't go deeper into a depression, that it did sort of prevent us from a deeper depression.

FLEISCHER: But then why isn't he talking about it? I mean, the fact of the matter is, the president's advisers said at the time the stimulus was passed that it would keep unemployment below 8 percent. That even in this year in 2012 they projected unemployment would be below 6 percent.

It really failed to hit all its marks. And it was $1 trillion that now is deficit spending. So that's the odd thing. The president continues to call for a stimulus, in deed but not in word. I think that's going to be a real election issue and a problem.

COOPER: Ali Velshi, I know you wanted to get in.

VELSHI: Yes. Come on, Ari, you know that no president ever -- or presidential candidate ever does the math on unemployment. It comes from the Congressional Budget Office. Those are the numbers that the president --

FLEISCHER: No --

VELSHI: Those are the numbers that President Obama --

FLEISCHER: Christina Romer. Christina Romer was his own adviser.

VELSHI: Those are the numbers that President Obama -- FLEISCHER: You're wrong, Ali. No.

VELSHI: -- depended on last time. Mitt Romney has said it will be 6 percent under him. Those are CBO numbers. The fact is, do you really think the unemployment rate in two years from now has anything to do with what the president is going to be able to do or do you think it's got to do with -- what's going on in Europe and the slowdown in China, and the -- those storm clouds in the rest of the world?

This is the problem. It's not partisan and it's not about Washington. It's about the rest of the world right now.

FLEISCHER: But, Ali, the reason the president has re-election difficulties is because the American economy is doing so poorly and the president made tremendous promises to the American people that he would reduce unemployment, the deficit will be cut in half, and he hasn't honored those promises and he hasn't fixed the economy that he inherited.

That's the problem. But you're wrong. It was not CBO, it was the president's own advisers in the transition.

VELSHI: But --

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: Christina Romer, the incumbent chairman of the council --

VELSHI: And so was everybody else. Ari, everybody was saying it.

FLEISCHER: Ali, don't say things that are wrong and then try to fact that.

VELSHI: Were you not saying, Ari?

FLEISCHER: It was the president's advisers --

VELSHI: Because we were -- I was studying all of those projections but the fact is --

FLEISCHER: I didn't make any projections for the president.

VELSHI: -- that when you say that the stimulus didn't work, where would we be without that right now? What would our unemployment rate be without that right now? We are in a worldwide battle between stimulus and austerity. Austerity is not working. And you're arguing for it. You want to put America into that. That's not the right answer, Ari.

COOPER: Before we get --

(CROSSTALK)

FLEISCHER: That's your opinion.

COOPER: Before we go down the road with this debate, I do want to bring in Jill Daugherty.

Jill, on Syria obviously we didn't see any movement. And you look at the body language in that meeting between Putin and President Obama. They could not have been more far apart physically and it seems like, certainly ideologically and strategically, on what their plans are for Syria.

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: You know, they really are. I mean here's the dilemma. And we could have had this discussion and heard the president say basically the same thing weeks ago, which is the United States wants Assad to step aside and move into a transition.

The Russians, say, look, we have no love lost for Assad, but who decides, who decides whether he goes, and that's what Mr. Putin said, right before President Obama spoke, Mr. Putin spoke, and he said, that's one of my fundamental positions. That no one has the right to decide for anyone else who goes, who stays. And that's the way they look at it.

So maybe they're hedging their bets until they feel that Assad really is going down and then they jump on the bandwagon. But right now, they can take this high position, almost a theoretical position, of saying, well, you know, nobody else should decide who goes.

COOPER: Right, certainly not a position they've taken in the past on Chechnya or Afghanistan or other places where they intervene militarily.

Everyone, stick around. A reminder, we got breaking news as well out of Cairo to talk about, we'll be taking take you there shortly live. We're going to continue this conversation after a quick break.

Join us on Facebook, on Twitter right now, @andersoncooper. Let me know what you thought of the president's comments tonight. A lot more ahead, stay tuned.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Hey, welcome back. We're here with breaking news out of Egypt. And stunning day back home at the Sandusky trial. All of which we're going to cover tonight.

Also President Obama heading home tonight from the G-20 economic summit in Mexico. He just finished making some comments at the top of the hour. Here's more of what he had to say at the post summit news conference. More about the context, the 2012 presidential race and sniping from the Romney campaign. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

OBAMA: I would point out that we have one president at a time and one administration at a time. And I think traditionally the notion has been that America's political differences end at the water's edge. I'd also suggest that he may not be familiar with what our suggestions to the Germans have been. And I think sometimes back home there's a desire to superimpose whatever ideological arguments are taking place back home on to a very complicated situation in Europe.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Back now with our panel. Ari Fleischer, Paul Begala, Jill Dougherty, Ali Velshi, and John King.

John, this is the second in under a week that we've heard the president basically pushed back against what he seemed to consider a lack of respect. It comes just a couple of days after a conservative reporter interrupted his remarks on immigration at the White House.

Tonight's response seemed to have certainly a bit of edge, didn't it?

KING: Well, and it is an old tradition, and Paul and Ari know this well from working in the White House and working at campaigns. It used to be, an emphasis on used to be, that when the president was overseas, when the president was in a major international summit, that you just shut down the criticism.

There maybe if Romney was on his bus tour, he could criticize the stimulus program whatever. But you don't criticize what the president's doing at that moment on the global stage. And so this op- ed piece written in an overseas newspaper by a Romney adviser was taken as an affront by the Obama White House.

Now I'm going to say this and some people out there will get mad about this. Democrats have done this, too, in recent years. Ari knows this when he was traveling with President Bush, whether President Bush was up for re-election in 2004 or when Bush was still president, McCain was running in 2008. Some Democrats violated this rule as well. So this is one of the many rules that have crumbled in recent years.

But you're right, the president didn't like it.

COOPER: Ari, you actually had a -- I don't know if you tweeted this. You wrote during -- after the president said this, you said, quote, "Did the president really say the politics stops at the water's edge? That sure wasn't how he treated George W. Bush."

FLEISCHER: Yes, that's exactly right, and John remembers it. And I remember when George Bush became president and right away in 2001 then Senate majority leader George Mitchell criticized President Bush when he left the country.

Paul said it right. It's honored in the breach. I think this is someone that used to be a part of American politics. But frankly that changed decades ago. It changed largely with the advent of cable television. And when people said just made news almost instantly anywhere. I don't think it's that big a deal. I think President Obama is a pretty tough guy.

But as for that op-ed that was written in the German paper, now remember, President Obama himself went to Germany and spoke in a campaign rally in the middle of the presidential election cycle. So I have a hard time seeing why something written is objectionable but what someone spoken is fine.

The world is our stage, most of our politics takes place within our borders, I don't think anybody committed any fouls today or in 2008.

COOPER: Paul, do you see it the same way?

BEGALA: Pretty much. I quibble with one thing Ari said, I don't think it's the advent of cable news. Don't blame us for that one. I think it's a collapse of --

(LAUGHTER)

BEGALA: I think it's the collapse of the Berlin wall. I think while our president had the power, and he still does, to destroy all life on earth and the Soviet Union had that same power, that I think -- most of our history before and after the Cold War, we were just hammering each other politically. But there was, I think, that brief period most of our lifetimes where it was sort of not polite.

I think it's a vestige of the Cold War. I still think it's a noble tradition. I agree with Ari that some guy writing some op-ed at some German paper hardly rises to the -- I mean, you know, my response would have been, this is what I tweeted, Anderson. It was -- well, Mitt Romney's idea of foreign policy experience is visiting his investments in the Swiss bank account in the Caymans.

That's kind of a political shot. Maybe president's campaign can launch back at Mr. Romney but I don't think it's a big deal.

COOPER: And, Jill, I want to ask you about something that Senator McCain just tweeted during the president's speech. He said, and I quote, "Just watched the president's comments on Syria, nonsensical and completely out of touch with the realities on the ground."

As the White House sees it, as the State Department sees it, do they feel like -- I mean, it seems like he feels like they don't have many options when it comes to Syria. They still seem to be focusing on the U.N.

DAUGHERTY: Oh, definitely. I mean, you know, Senator McCain has been tweeting up a storm. And he called it a desperation move. He's used words like this. But what he wants is a very robust, potentially military solution to this. And one of the things that here at the State Department and the administration believe, is that Syria would be very, very difficult to have any type of military solution. It's not like Libya.

You have -- even if you wanted to try to have safe zones, everybody in Syria is mixed up with another ethnic group. There are no big areas of one type of ethnic group. They are in towns and cities, it would be very, very difficult to protect at all by air.

You'd really have to send in ground troops. It's the idea to send in ground troops. So the only game in town right now for -- at least for this administration, the way they look at it is to try to put as much pressure on the Assad -- the people who were supporting Assad.

It's not working very well, however, and then keep hammering Russia to try to do what it can to entice or push Assad to step aside.

COOPER: I want to appreciate all of you joining us for this special coverage of President Bush -- excuse me, President Obama's remarks. I was thinking back to Bush.

There's more breaking news in Cairo to tell you about. Thousands are in Tahrir Square as we speak. Egypt's former dictator reportedly near death. We're live with late details next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Jerry Sandusky's wife takes the stand in his child sex abuse trial. We'll speak to a supporter of Sandusky's, a friend who calls him a saint. I'll ask her did she not hear any of the evidence against him?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. There's also breaking news in Egypt tonight, big news. Conflicting reports right now about ousted President Hosni Mubarak who was given a life sentence two weeks ago.

A state news agency is reporting that the 84-year-old former dictator, shown here at his trial recently, is on life support after having a stroke and being declared clinically dead.

Mubarak's lawyer however, says he's in a coma and the military says Mubarak's condition is critical, but he is still alive. Now the confusion comes at a volatile time. Let's look at Tahrir Square tonight. Thousands of Egyptians have turned out to protest what they call a coup.

Earlier, tens of thousands were there. The country's military rulers issued a constitutional decree yesterday, giving themselves sweeping powers stripping the presidency of its powers basically an end run around Egypt's first democratic presidential election, which took place this weekend.

Joining me now is senior international correspondent Ben Wedeman is live in Cairo, and on the phone, Fouad Ajami, senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, author of the new book "The Syrian Rebellion," and also chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta.

So Ben, what's the latest right now on Mubarak's health? What do we know?

BEN WEDEMAN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, actually we don't know very much. We've got two different narratives. One coming from the official Middle East news agency several hours ago saying that former President Mubarak was quote/unquote "clinically dead."

His lawyer, however, says he's in a coma, his health has deteriorated. He had to be resuscitated several times, but he insists that he's not dead.

Now, we are awaiting -- well, we've been waiting for quite some time for a statement to come out of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, which will hopefully clarify this situation, but this is just one point of lack of clarity that we have.

We have two presidential nominees or candidates who both insist they won in the recent elections. We have a parliament that's been dissolved, but insists it's still sitting.

So these Mubarak reports are just one tip of the iceberg of confusion that seems to be floating in denial right now -- Anderson.

COOPER: And I want to talk about that more with Ben. Sanjay, from a medical standpoint, Mubarak's lawyer saying that he's not dead, he's been in a coma now for hours and he's had water in the lungs for 10 days, his blood pressure is down and that obstructed his breathing and forced doctors to put him on a respirator.

Does that make any sense to you? What do you make of the medical information you've been hearing?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN CHIEF MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): Well, you know, he's obviously an elderly person who has a history of heart disease and cancer. The water on the lungs typically -- probably are referring to pneumonia that has progressed, may have even gotten into his bloodstream.

When what happens, someone's blood pressure can fall and fall precipitously, quickly, and that can lead to the heart problems becoming worse. That part of it makes sense.

I think the confusion and this is a confusing thing even with hospitals here in the states. Clinically dead, I think what they're referring to, brain death. Someone's heart can still be functioning, but their brain is no longer.

And brain death versus coma I think now, reading through all these reports, is the distinction. Brain death is something that's irreversible. That's not something that someone is going to recover from.

Whereas a coma, someone could possibly recover from that. So that's just piecing together all these various and sometimes conflicting reports. COOPER: So Fouad, does it matter whether Mubarak lives or dies? I mean, in the next day or so in terms of what happens in Egypt now? What's really going on there?

FOUAD AJAMI, SENIOR FELLOW, STANFORD UNIVERSITY'S HOOVER INSTITUTE (via telephone): Well, I think that's absolutely important and very unsentimental question, what the hell does it matter?

You have an 84-year-old man in a country with a life expectancy in the mid-60s. You have a man who ruled for 30 years and now he's dead, he's not dead, he's clinically dead.

I'm reminded of that remark that Arabs make in a kind of irreverent way. They say about someone is he dead and buried or just dead. I think the whole saga of Mubarak is a side show of a side show.

Mubarak and the remnants of the regime around him have been very clever. What they've done is they have basically put out these stories about the health of this ruler.

And they have done their best to move this man from prison where he was sent right after his trial when he was sentenced to life in prison. And they returned him to the hospital. This is really what the game is about as far as I can see.

COOPER: So Fouad, in terms of the back story to the presidential election, what the military has done, I mean, has there been in all intents and purposes a coup?

AJAMI: Well, I think there is some element of truth in this. You have this presidential election. You ended up because of the peculiar nature of the way the votes were cast, you end up with the man from the old regime, you end up with Mubarak's old last Prime Minister Shafik and you end up with a man from the Muslim Brotherhood, each one of them is claiming victory.

But I think to the extent that the numbers can be trusted from Egypt it would appear that Morsi has won, that the candidate of the Muslim Brotherhood has won. And whoever is president will come into a kind of hollowed out presidency, because the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces has asserted its agenda.

What's interesting about Egypt today, Anderson, is the fact that no one is really stepping forward with a keen desire to rule. The army doesn't want to rule because they know the country is in deep distress.

The Muslim Brotherhood doesn't really want to fully rule. So you have the chaos that followed more than 60 years of authoritarian dictatorship.

COOPER: Ben, you lived there, not just reporting from there, you lived there. What do you see happening? I mean, is there now a showdown between the Muslim Brotherhood and the military? What is the next week hold? WEDEMAN: Well, certainly what we saw today was tens of thousands of Muslim Brotherhood supporters and others flocking to Tahrir Square, to protest what they see is this coup d'etat. Now the Muslim Brotherhood probably wants to push this a little bit further to put more pressure on the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

But what they clearly don't want is a direct confrontation because, obviously, the military far outguns the Brotherhood. And when push comes to shove, most Egyptians or many Egyptians probably would support the military against the Brotherhood, which is an organization that has sort of 25 percent to 30 percent of the population solidly behind it.

But that leaves at least 70 percent far from solid behind it. So they're probably pushing for concessions from the military, but not ready for a showdown -- Anderson.

COOPER: We'll continue to follow it closely. Ben Wedeman, Fouad Ajami, Sanjay Gupta, thank you.

Back home, crucial testimony today in the Jerry Sandusky child rape trial. His lawyer still will not say whether Sandusky himself is going to take the stand.

But his wife, Dottie Sandusky did testify today and what she said she saw and heard when a young boy spent night at their house. We'll have that one when we continue.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Remember Wikileaks' Julian Assange, he is asking for political asylum in his fight against getting sent to Sweden to face sexual assault allegations. We'll have the latest ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Welcome back. "Crime and Punishment" now, for a second straight day, Jerry Sandusky's lawyers tried to portray him as a normal good hearted, generous person, not a sexual predator. The defense is trying to counter the graphic testimony eight alleged victims game last week in the child rape trial.

Former Penn State assistant football coach is charged, as you know with sexually abusing 10 boys over a 15-year period. Today, his lawyers questioned the techniques of police investigators who interviewed the accusers.

They also called a psychologist to the stand along with character witnesses, friends and former colleagues of Sandusky. Crucial testimony also came from Sandusky's wife of more than 40 years, Dottie.

Jason Carroll was in the courtroom today. He joins me now. Jason, the most anticipated defense witness besides Jerry has no doubt been Dottie Sandusky. She took the stand. She said she never saw any inappropriate contact between her husband and those young boys, correct?

JASON CARROLL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: That is correct. Basically, she also contradicted specifically the testimony of two of the accusers, number four and number nine.

Number four you'll remember, says Jerry Sandusky took him to the Alamo Bowl back in 1999 and tried to sexually assault him in a hotel room when Dottie sort of walked in and said "what's going on."

She says according to her she did walk in and said "what's going on," but she said both men were close and clothed, Anderson. And she also said she said "What's going on" because Jerry Sandusky was angry because this young boy refused to go to a luncheon, an expensive luncheon that they had paid for.

With relation to number nine, accuser number nine, he was the one who testified who he had said that he had been down in the basement of Jerry Sandusky's home and screamed repeatedly for help.

Dottie was asked about that by Joe Amendola, defense attorney, who said, quote, "If something happened in your basement, could you hear it?" She answered, I think so, yes. Then he asked did you ever hear someone yelling for help while he was staying there?

Her answer, no. She also said, Anderson, that her husband had no inappropriate contact with any young boys.

COOPER: What did we hear from experts about this histrionic personality disorder? The defense is saying -- explains some of those letters that he wrote to one of the accusers.

CARROLL: Right, we're hearing a lot more about this histrionic personality disorder. Basically, this is a disorder according to some of the doctors who testified.

It's basically a disorder where you have to be the center of attention. You cannot be on the sidelines. When that happens, you act in inappropriate ways.

Some of the things they brought up, you have to have assistance, approval, respect, admiration and intimacy. Well, basically, the prosecution, you know, got up there and basically said there's no way Jerry Sandusky could not be the center of attention.

Throughout his entire career, he was an assistant football coach. So how then could he suffer from this disorder? You could see both sides going back and forth on this issue throughout the court proceeding.

COOPER: Duelling experts. Jason Carroll, appreciate it.

One of the witnesses called by the defense today was a woman named Joyce Porter. She is a close friend of Jerry and Dottie Sandusky. She says she's known them for 40 years, and believes without question that Jerry Sandusky is innocent. I talked to her earlier. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: So Joyce, you've called Jerry Sandusky a saint. Why are you so convinced that he's innocent?

JOYCE PORTER, SANDUSKY DEFENSE WITNESS: I've known him for 40 years. I think he's a wonderful man. He's been very good to people in my family.

I've had one son with down syndrome who Jerry and Dottie would take for dinner, take out of town for football games. I've had another son that went to his football camp.

He's written to him when he's had some troubles in life. Jerry's a wonderful man.

COOPER: There are at least 10 alleged victims right now, ten accusers of Sandusky's sexual abuse, eight of whom have testified in the trial. Do you believe that they're all lying?

PORTER: Well, I believe in Jerry and I believe in the thousands of live he's already touched who have been bettered by his relationship with them. And when you count thousands, plus knowing him for 40 years --

COOPER: So why do you think these eight have testified?

PORTER: You know, you'd have to ask them.

COOPER: But, I mean, you must think that they're not telling the truth.

PORTER: Yes, I must think that.

COOPER: Do you believe they're in it for money? The defense attorney has indicated that, you know, maybe they're in it for some sort of financial settlement down the road.

PORTER: Well, I think they come from poor backgrounds and I think money would be a big motivator for them. Most of them have already gotten attorneys who aren't charging them anything.

COOPER: There's also eyewitness testimony from Mike McQueary, another coach who says he saw Jerry Sandusky sexually assaulting a boy in the locker room shower at night.

And McQueary, as far as I can tell, has nothing to gain momentarily from coming forward. In fact, he's been placed on administration leave from the coaching job at Penn State since all this happened. Why do you think he's testified that?

PORTER: Well, his testimony has been different to different people. And I think that he didn't say it was -- he's changed his story on whether it was really sexual or who knew what it was.

And as far as I know, he's on paid because he's a whistle blower and now he's suing Penn State so he's out to make even more money.

COOPER: What Mike McQueary says he saw, though, he heard rhythmic slapping and he saw Jerry Sandusky naked in the shower with this little boy standing behind him late at night in a shower.

Is there any explanation for -- in your mind, why Jerry Sandusky would be naked showering with a little boy and soaped up with a little boy?

PORTER: I think a lot of guys are working out. They were playing basketball then they go take a shower. Where is this little boy that Mike McQueary supposedly saw? Why hasn't he come forward if there's even a witness to say this happened?

COOPER: So you see no possible reasons why somebody doesn't come forward and talk about sexual abuse that occurred to them as a child?

PORTER: I don't know.

COOPER: You say people take showers with each other all the time. I mean, I was on a team in college. I've talked to many coaches. I've never heard of coaches showering with little boys, let alone players on their team, but little boys late at night in a coach's shower.

PORTER: Well, you weren't here for court yesterday when two coaches said yes, they take showers with boys. And you go to the YMCA and I go in a locker room after swimming. There's all ages of women naked in the locker room there taking showers so what's the difference?

COOPER: A grown man soaping up a little boy late at night alone in a shower. That doesn't seem unusual?

PORTER: No. He was like a father figure to a lot of these kids. You know, he'd help them take a shower. Who knows how old this boy was?

COOPER: Well, do you think a 12-year-old, a 13-year-old, do you think they need help taking showers?

PORTER: Well, Mike McQueary said he was anywhere from 8 to 12. So he could have been 8.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Well, that's Joyce Porter who testified today and stands by Jerry Sandusky no matter what, as you will -- as you hear. You'll hear more of my interview with Joyce Porter tomorrow night on 360.

Former Rutgers University student Dharun Ravi is out of prison tonight. Why he got an early release after being convicted of spying on his roommate and bias intimidation, ahead on 360.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COOPER: Let's get a quick check of other stories we're following. Isha's here with the "360 Bulletin" -- Isha.

ISHA SESAY, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Anderson, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is at the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum. That's according to Ecuador's foreign minister. Assange is fighting extradition to Sweden for questioning in a sex abuse case. He's been under house arrest in Britain for a year and a half.

Dharun Ravi is out of prison tonight. The former Rutgers University student convicted of spying on and intimidating his gay roommate served 20 days of a 30-day sentence. The early release was granted for good behavior and work credit. His former roommate, Tyler Clementi, killed himself by jumping off New York's George Washington Bridge.

Michael Phelps could be seeking a new record at the summer Olympics. He's participating in 10 races at the Olympic trials next week in Nebraska. If he qualifies for all of them, he may take home ten medals this summer. Phelps earned eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing games. I'll be watching from my sofa, wishing him the best.

COOPER: That would be amazing. He could get the record of most Olympic medals of any athlete ever in time.

SESAY: That would be incredible.

COOPER: That's it for us. We'll see you again at 10 p.m. Eastern. Thanks for watching. "PIERS MORGAN TONIGHT" starts now.