Trump's envoy secretly met Iran's exiled 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 protests raging in Iran, according to a senior U.S. official.

This was the first high-level meeting between the Iranian opposition and the Trump administration since the protests began 15 days ago. Pahlavi is attempting to position himself to step in as a "transitional" leader if the regime falls.

Pahlavi, the son of the shah who was deposed during the 1979 Islamic Revolution, leads an opposition faction from exile in the U.S.

• Over the last two weeks, Pahlavi has been appearing on U.S. television networks calling on the Trump administration to intervene in support of the protests.

The White House national security team held a meeting Tuesday morning on options for responding to the protests. President Trump did not attend.

• A senior U.S. official told Axios that the deliberations inside the administration are at a relatively early stage.
• "We are still not in a decision-making mode regarding a military action at the moment," the official said, while acknowledging it's hard to predict where Trump will land.
• Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in closed-door meetings in recent days that, at this stage, the administration is looking at non-kinetic responses to help the protesters, according to a source with direct knowledge.

The protests continued on Tuesday in cities across Iran. Estimates of the death toll have risen dramatically but also vary widely. Israel shared an assessment with the U.S. that at least 5,000 protesters had been killed, according to a U.S. official.