Trump Questions Support for Exiled Crown Prince in Iran

President Donald Trump questioned on Jan. 14 how much support the exiled crown prince of Iran had in the Middle-Eastern country. Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi—who was ousted in the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which brought the first ayatollah to power—has been a prominent figure in the protests that have raged in that country since December 2025, cheering on the demonstrators from abroad. Trump, however, in an interview with Reuters, appeared unsure whether the Iranian people would accept the exiled royal as their leader should the current regime fall. “He seems very nice, but I don’t know how he’d play within his own country,” the president said of Pahlavi, who left Iran before the fall of his father’s regime and has been a resident in the United States for decades....