Iran's hardline president-elect rules out meeting with Biden as nuclear talks paused for "decision making"

Iran's president-elect Ebrahim Raisi has wasted no time in setting out his hardline agenda. Raisi said on Monday that he would not meet with President Joe Biden even if the opportunity arose. 

At an inaugural press conference, Iran's new political leader said Washington should immediately return to the 2015 nuclear deal that former President Donald Trump walked away from and lift all sanctions against his country. Raisi also said that Iran's ballistic missile program and its backing of extremist groups across the Middle East were non-negotiable, despite demands by some in the U.S. that those issues be included in negotiations over a prospective return to the nuclear pact.

The former head of Iran's powerful judiciary called himself "a defender of human rights" after being asked directly about his involvement in the 1988 mass execution of some 5,000 people who dared to speak out against the regime. CBS News senior foreign correspondent Elizabeth Palmer was at the press conference, and she said that comment from Raisi drew eye rolls from the gathered media.

As Palmer has reported, Raisi won an election that appears to have drawn the lowest voter turnout in the Islamic Republic's history — an election he was only able to dominate after a panel of officials under the watch of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei disqualified his strongest competition.