Between the lines: Pompeo said the Trump administration would have handled the 2009 Green Movement uprising against the regime very differently than the Obama administration did. But he did not say how.

Pompeo also said there is “no such thing as a moderate inside the Iranian regime anywhere today.”

And when asked how he could guarantee that the Trump administration’s tough new sanctions wouldn’t hurt the people of Iran, he replied: “There are no guarantees.”

Pompeo also distanced the administration from the People’s Mujahedin of Iran, or MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq), an anti-regime group that the U.S. once designated as a foreign terrorist organization.