Ben Rhodes

And it seems like...

maybe hundreds of thousands of them listened, or at least he timed those calls well because he knew people were going to go out.

I've also heard an analyst suggest that these were mostly young people who don't know about the Shah, don't know the history, don't know the corruption or the human rights abuses.

But Axios reported that Steve Witkoff secretly met with Pahlavi over the weekend.

Later in my conversation with Jason, you'll hear

that Jason is skeptical that Pahlavi or anyone outside of Iran could assume the mantle and take over.

But in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini was in exile in France before he returned to Iran to lead the Iranian revolution.

So I guess there's some precedent here, but I don't know what to think.

There's a hilarious sitcom getting set up here.

Yeah, Maduro's over there.

There's a lot of what about.

Yeah.

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.