Axios: White House envoy holds secret meeting with exiled Iranian crown prince

White House envoy Steve Witkoff met secretly over the weekend with the exiled former crown prince of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, to discuss the ongoing protests in Iran, according to a senior U.S. official. 

This marks the first high-level contact between the Iranian opposition and the Trump administration since the demonstrations began 15 days ago, Axios writes.

Pahlavi is positioning himself as a potential "transitional" leader should the regime collapse.

Pahlavi, the son of the shah deposed during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, has been leading an opposition faction from exile in the United States. Over the last two weeks, he has appeared on U.S. television networks calling on the Trump administration to intervene in support of the protesters.

A senior U.S. official said the administration is still in the early stages of considering a response. "We are still not in a decision-making mode regarding a military action at the moment," the official said, while acknowledging it is hard to predict where Trump will land.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio has reportedly told colleagues in closed-door meetings that the administration is currently focusing on non-kinetic responses to support the protesters.

The protests continued on January 13 across cities in Iran, with estimates of the death toll varying widely. Israel shared an assessment with the U.S. that at least 5,000 protesters have been killed, according to a U.S. official. "The Iranians are conducting massive repression," the official said.

President Trump addressed the unrest on January 13, calling on the Iranian people to "keep protesting" and "take over" government institutions, adding: "Help is on its way." When pressed by reporters for clarification, Trump said: "You are gonna have to figure that one out," and stressed that he believes Americans "should get out" of Iran.

Initially, the Trump administration did not see Pahlavi as a significant political figure. In a recent interview on the "Hugh Hewitt Show," Trump declined to endorse him. However, a senior U.S. official noted that protesters in many demonstrations have been chanting Pahlavi’s name.

"There has been an ascendance of Pahlavi. They are chanting his name in demonstrations in many cities, and it seems to be happening organically," the official said.

Analysts say Pahlavi offers a unifying focus for nationalist sentiment among the protesters. Karim Sadjadpour, senior analyst at the Carnegie Endowment, said, "Most of these protestors were born after the 1979 revolution and have nostalgia for an era they never experienced, when the country's economy was growing, it was socially free, and it enjoyed a positive international image. Reza Pahlavi is the leader who for many Iranians best embodies that patriotism and that forward-looking nostalgia to make Iran great again."

Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran program at the Israeli Institute for National Security Studies, cautioned that while Pahlavi's name appears frequently in protests, this does not necessarily indicate broad public backing. Even if there isn’t widespread belief in Pahlavi's "leadership capabilities," many Iranians might accept him at least temporarily, "out of a sense that he is preferable to the present state of affairs," Zimmt said.

Public opinion polls conducted over the last few years, including as recently as November 2025, suggest around one-third of Iranians support Pahlavi while another third strongly oppose him, according to Dutch pollster Ammar Maleki – higher than any other Iranian opposition figure.

By Aghakazim Guliyev