By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – U.S. President Donald Trump said on Wednesday that Iranian opposition figure Reza Pahlavi “looks very good” but expressed uncertainty over whether Pahlavi will ultimately be able to rally support in Iran.
In an exclusive Reuters interview in the Oval Office, Trump said Iran’s clerical government is likely to fall, blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for the impasse in talks with Russia over the war in Ukraine, and dismissed Republican criticism.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in support of protesters in Iran, where unrest against the clerical regime has reportedly killed thousands of people. But he was reluctant on Wednesday to fully support Pahlavi, son of the late Shah of Iran, who was deposed in 1979.
“He looks great, but I don’t know how he’s going to play in his own country,” Trump said. “And we haven’t really reached that point.
“I don’t know if his country will accept his leadership, and certainly if they do, that would be great for me.”
Trump’s comments questioned Pahlavi’s ability to lead Iran, saying last week that he had no plans to meet.
Pahlavi, 65, who is based in the US, has lived outside Iran since before his father fell in the 1979 Islamic revolution and has been a prominent voice in the opposition. Iran’s opposition is divided into rival groups and ideological factions — including monarchists who support the Pahlavi — and appears to have little organized presence within the Islamic republic.
Trump said it was possible that Tehran’s government could fall due to protests but that “any regime can fail.”
“Whether it falls or not, it will be an interesting period of time,” he said.
Ending the first year of his second term in office, Trump sat behind his massive Resolute desk and sipped a Diet Coke during the 30-minute interview. At one point, he held up a thick binder of papers that contained his accomplishments since taking office on January 20, 2025.
But he sought to manage expectations for Republicans in November’s congressional midterm elections, noting that the party in power frequently loses seats two years after a presidential election.
“When you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” he said. “But we will work hard to win the midterms.”
‘ZELENSKIY’ the main obstacle to reaching an agreement
Trump, who has struggled throughout his presidency to end Russia’s war in Ukraine despite campaign boasts that he could end Russia’s war in Ukraine in one day, said Zelensky was the main obstacle to resolving the four-year-old war.
Trump has repeatedly criticized both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, but once again seemed frustrated with the Ukrainian president.
Trump says Putin is ‘ready to compromise’. Asked what the hold up was, Trump said simply: “Zelensky.”
“We have to take President Zelensky with us,” he said.
Republican lawmakers ‘must be loyal’
Trump dismissed Senate Republicans who have vowed to block their Fed nominees as saying Trump’s Justice Department is interfering with the central bank’s traditional independence with the Powell investigation.
“I don’t care. There is nothing to say. They should be loyal,” he said of his party’s lawmakers.
Trump also rejected criticism from JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon that Trump’s intervention at the Fed could increase inflation.
“I don’t care what they say,” Trump said.
Trump will meet with Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado at the White House on Thursday, their first in-person meeting since Trump arrested Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and seized control of the country earlier this month.
“She’s a very nice woman,” Trump said of Machado. “I’ve seen her on television. I think we’re just going to do the basics.”
Machado won the Nobel Peace Prize last year and dedicated it to Trump. He offered to give her his prize, but the Nobel Committee said the Peace Prize could not be handed out.
He praised Venezuela’s acting president, Delsy Rodriguez, who was vice president when Maduro was ousted. Trump said he had a “charming conversation” with Rodriguez earlier Wednesday and that he was “very nice to deal with.”
Trump repeatedly praised the strength of the U.S. economy during the interview, saying Americans are concerned about prices. He said he would take that message to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, next week, where he will talk about “how great our economy is, how strong our job numbers are, how well we’re doing.”
White House press secretary Carolyn Levitt told Reuters that Trump will hold bilateral meetings with the leaders of Switzerland, Poland and Egypt during the Davos event.
(Reporting by Steve Holland, Editing by Colin Jenkins, Ross Colvin and Diane Craft)
