Over the weekend, White House envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff met with Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last shah, in a rare high-level contact between the Trump administration and a prominent figure in Iran’s opposition as mass protests continue to shake the country, according to a senior U.S. official who spoke to Axios.
The discussion first reported Tuesday focused on the protest movement and the opposition’s read of events inside Iran. The gathering was described as the first known high-level engagement between the Trump administration and an Iranian opposition figure since the current wave of demonstrations began.
Pahlavi, who has lived in exile since the 1979 revolution that toppled his father’s monarchy, has spent the past two weeks making media appearances in the United States, urging Washington to support the protesters and arguing that Iran’s clerical leadership is vulnerable. Details about where the weekend meeting took place and whether it involved additional participants.
Axios also reported that the White House national security team met Tuesday morning to review options for responding to the protests, though Trump did not attend and that discussions were still at an early stage. In that account, a senior U.S. official said the administration was not yet in “We are still not in a decision-making mode regarding a military action at the moment,” and Secretary of State Marco Rubio was described as emphasizing non-military ways to help demonstrators.
President Donald Trump publicly encouraged Iranians on social media to continue protesting, posting on Truth Social that “HELP IS ON ITS WAY,” and to “Save the names of the killers and the abusers,” as “They will pay a big price.” while declining to explain what that meant when pressed by reporters. Trump also said he had halted meetings with Iranian officials until violence against protesters stopped.
Pahlavi has long called for U.S. intervention in Iran, telling CBS News that “The best way to ensure that there will be less people killed in Iran is to intervene sooner, so this regime finally collapses and puts an end to all the problems that we are facing.” He also posted on his X account that “the goal is to prepare for seizing the centers of cities and holding them.”
هممیهنان عزیزم،
شما با شجاعت و ایستادگی خود، تحسین جهانیان را برانگیختهاید. حضور دگرباره و پرشکوهتان در خیابانهای سراسر ایران در شامگاه جمعه، پاسخی دندانشکن به تهدیدهای رهبر خائن و جنایتکار جمهوری اسلامی بود. یقین دارم که او این تصاویر را از مخفیگاهش دیده و از وحشت لرزیده… pic.twitter.com/MaQDiwkXRL
— Reza Pahlavi (@PahlaviReza) January 10, 2026
Iran’s nationwide protests, which began on Dec. 28, 2025, amid economic grievances, have rapidly escalated into one of the most sustained waves of unrest since the 1979 revolution. Demonstrations have spread across all 31 provinces, and an Iranian government official told Reuters that at least 2,000 people have been killed.
