CBS News reporter Elizabeth Palmer likened new Iranian president-elect Hasan Rowhani to an American tea party activist in a weekend interview on the network.
“Liz, a man named Hassan Rowhani will be the next president of Iran. Is he in the mold of Ahmadinejad?,” CBS News anchor Jim Axelrod asked Palmer, who was appearing on the program from London.
“Well he was seen as the most reform-minded of all the candidates who ran this time. That being said, they were all very conservative. In U.S. terms, it was as if all the candidates for the presidency came from the tea party,” Palmer said.
Rowhani, who was elected to the Iranian presidency last week, hinted Monday that he will strike a more open and diplomatic tone with the United States than his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“Iran and America’s relationship was like a wound that has not healed; we must not look back but forward,” Rowhani said.
Palmer, a veteran of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation who has filed reports for PBS and NPR, has been primarily covering Middle East issues for CBS News since 2000.