Ben Rhodes

Look, I mean,

Trump's terrible, obviously.

But like on the Pahlavi question, it's like, again, the Shah was pushed out by like a massive coalition that wasn't just like- No, they were secularists.

It was like labor unions, like secular left students, clergy, it was everybody.

They just hated them.

So the idea that they'd welcome them back.

So I don't really believe Pahlavi when he suggests he's going to hold a referendum and a new constitution and doesn't want to bring back the monarchy.

Like I found that hard to believe.

Now, there is – there's been some polling that suggests about a third of Iranians supported him while another third strongly opposed him according to some Dutch pollster from 2025.

Again, I don't know.

I think mostly this is like –

People in Western media know who he is.

They need someone to call.

They can book him.

He's very bookable, it seems.

But he also, he's like kind of been at least clever in how he has framed this because he's been trying to set up this system to offer amnesty to anyone in the regime who will like go on some online portal, he says, and register their name.

And he claims to have signed up 50,000 people who, you know, he wants to keep in place.

Although, yeah, it's smart.

It's like, would you ever put your name down?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.