It’s every kid’s dream: Meet the president, maybe paint an Easter egg, hear all about a right-wing conspiracy that claims the past president’s use of autopen invalidates his major policy achievements even though the current president — the one rambling right now — also uses autopen.

President Donald Trump did his best to woo a table full of kids at the White House Easter Egg Roll Monday by talking about former President Joe Biden’s use of autopen.

Trump: “You know, Biden would use the autopen.”

It did not go well. Or in the words of one enterprising kid at the table, “What?”

Trump then signed his name on a piece of paper for the media, apparently to affirm his competence for the job.

Trump rambles about autopen to a table of children at the White House Easter event pic.twitter.com/4NRAj8ECFf

As he continued rambling on before reporters on Monday, Trump used an ableist slur twice to describe what he believes North Korean leader Kim Jong Un would call former President Joe Biden.

The president trashed South Korea, an ally, for not assisting the U.S. in attacking Iran — implying they should have done so because there are tens of thousands of U.S. service members in the republic "to protect them" from the dictator, "who I get along with very well."

"He said very nice things about me. He used to call Joe Biden a mentally retarded person," Trump claimed. There is no evidence the North Korean leader has called Biden that slur.

The president's mocking of disabled people goes back decades. Trump has used the slur to describe multiple political opponents, including Biden, former Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.

After weeks of claiming the war with Iran would soon be over, President Donald Trump abruptly changed his tune with a startling admission when asked if he was "winding down" military operations.

Continuing his mad king performance in a sprawling press conference Monday, Trump justified his desire to seize Iran's oil by pointing to his administration's attack on Venezuela earlier this year, which gave the U.S. more control over that country's natural resources.

"I'm a businessman first," said Trump.

Trump had made it clear from the jump that a key motivation for the attack on Venezuela was access to oil. The U.S. moved earlier this year to legally own almost 2 million barrels of petroleum seized off Venezuela's coast, while acting President Delcy Rodriguez signed a law opening the country's oil sector to privatization.

"You know, the old days, to the winner go the spoils," Trump said Monday. "Why don't we use it? To the victor go the spoils."

That phrase was popularized by New York Sen. William Marcy in defending President Andrew Jackson's controversial use of political appointments to reward those who supported his election.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) defended President Donald Trump's profanity-laced Easter statement about the Strait of Hormuz on Monday, saying the president is right to be frustrated by the problems he's created.

"He's not wrong. Let's put it like that," Ernst told reporters at the Capitol. "I know the president is really frustrated, and we do want to see the straits opened. It's not just good for the United States, but it's good for Europe and so many other countries."

Iran effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, causing a dramatic increase in oil prices, in response to U.S. and Israeli airstrikes last month. “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah," Trump wrote on Easter Sunday, vowing to commit war crimes by attacking civilian infrastructure. Ernst said attacking the infrastructure, such as bridges and power plants, wouldn't be a war crime because the Iranian military also uses it.

One Republican, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), said Trump's post showed he has "gone insane" and that Republicans who aren't speaking out are complicit in the president's madness.

President Trump doubled down on his willingness to commit war crimes during a press conference Monday, repeatedly speaking over a reporter who cited the Geneva Conventions to remind him that attacking civilian infrastructure is illegal.

Instead of responding to the substance of the question itself, Trump first tried attacking the reporter’s credibility.

“Deliberate attacks on civilian infrastructure violate the Geneva Conventions and international law—“ the reporter began before Trump cut him off: “Who are you with?”

“The New York Times,” the reporter answered, then continued to press Trump on the question as Trump repeatedly slandered the credibility of the outlet.

The reporter ultimately got in one question: “Are you concerned that your threat to bomb power plants and bridges amounts to war crimes?”

“No, not at all,” said Trump. “No. No, no. I hope I don’t have to do it.”

Trump also reiterated his threat to take out Iranian power plants and other infrastructure, like bridges, if a deal is not reached by 8 p.m. ET Tuesday.

President Trump’s boast-filled press conference about the mission to retrieve a downed F-15 pilot hit an odd note when Trump asked General Dan Caine about sensitive military data, was kindly rebuffed, then spilled the beans anyway.

When asked by Trump mid press-conference “how many” rescuers were sent on the mission, Gen. Caine deflected.

“Uhh, I’d love to keep that a secret,” the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, drawing laughter from the room.

Trump promised he’d keep the number under wraps, then immediately divulged it.

“I’ll keep it a secret,” he said, “but it was hundreds … hundreds of people could’ve been killed.”

The astronauts aboard NASA's Artemis II have now traveled farther from Earth than any other humans in history, breaking the Apollo 13 record.

"As we surpass the furthest distance humans have ever traveled from planet Earth, we do so in honoring the extraordinary efforts and feats as our predecessors in human space exploration," Reid Wiseman, the Artemis II commander, said from the spaceship. "We will continue our journey even further into space before mother Earth succeeds in pulling us back to everything we hold dear. While, we most importantly choose this moment to challenge this generation and the next to make sure this record is not long lived."

This flight was to test life support on the spaceships and make observations of the moon's surface.

Artemis II will continue to travel the rest of Monday and this evening, they will become the first humans to view certain parts of the moon with unaided eyes, as well as hit the 252,760-mile mark from Earth, breaking Apollo 13's record by about 4,070 miles.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the U.S. launched a “deception campaign” to mislead Iranians searching for a U.S. airman missing in Iran.

Ratcliff likened the frantic search for the downed pilot to searching for a “single grain of sand in the middle of a desert” and said the U.S. deployed both human assets and technologies possessed by no other intelligence service in the world.

“In addition to the human and technical assets deployed by the president to find our airman, the CIA executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians who were desperately hunting for our airman,” he said, without offering further detail about this campaign.

State media reported that Tehran had offered a $60,000 reward for the pilot.

The airman was ultimately found safe, hidden in a mountain crevice, on Saturday morning.

“Our intelligence reflects that the Iranians were embarrassed and ultimately humiliated by the success of this audacious rescue mission,” he said.

.@CIADirector: "CIA executed a deception campaign to confuse the Iranians, who were desperately hunting for our airmen. On Saturday morning, we achieved our primary objective by finding and providing confirmation that one of America’s best and bravest was alive... Following the… pic.twitter.com/HYPXdvhxPf

President Trump appeared to threaten an unnamed reporter with jail if they don’t divulge their source, framing the release of information about a downed F-15 in Iran as a national security issue.

“We have to find that leaker because that’s a sick person,” Trump said of someone in his administration that tipped the media off to the efforts to rescue the pilot over the weekend. “The person that did that story will go to jail if they don’t say.”

Trump emphasized his attack on the press moments later, telling the media they intend to argue it’s “national security — give it up or go to jail.”

Seeking a narrative reset, President Trump opened his press conference Monday by boasting about the rescue of the F-15 pilot who crashed in Iran last week and was rescued in a harrowing mission over the weekend.

“The flight crews and warfighters aboard those aircraft took extraordinary risks to rescue their fellow service members,” Trump said, applauding the effort of those involved. “He was extracted from enemy territory… as our warriors faced gunfire at very close range.”

The president said the downed pilot was “bleeding rather profusely” during the escape, which included scaling cliff faces.

There were no American casualties in the rescue, Trump said.

Read more about that rescue here.

President Trump is expected to address the media shortly, amid reports Iran has rejected U.S. and Israeli appeals for a temporary ceasefire in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz.

The situation in Iran, which is entirely of Trump’s own creation, seems to have struck a particular nerve over the weekend. On Easter Sunday, in an expletive-laden social media post, the president threatened Iran with war crimes and also praised Allah.

The World Health Organization warned on Monday that attacks on or near hospitals must not become "the new norm," after Israel launched a deadly strike near Lebanon's largest public health facility a day earlier.

Since Feb. 28, Israel has conducted at least 92 attacks on health facilities, medical transport, personnel and warehouses, WHO verified. The attacks have killed at least 53 people.

"These acts cannot become the new norm," WHO chief Tedros Ghebreyesus said in a statement. "The world must reaffirm, unequivocally, that the protection of health care is not optional, but a universal obligation and a measure of our collective humanity."

The targeting of health care is not new to the Israeli military. In its ongoing decimation of Gaza, Israeli troops have effectively destroyed the Palestinian territory's medical system by striking hospitals while denying sufficient medication, hospital equipment and humanitarian supplies from entering the enclave.

Astronauts aboard the Artemis II mission are rapidly approaching the moon, where certain features of the lunar landscape will be seen by humans for the first time ever. The space agency shared a tantalizing first glimpse on social media Monday morning.

While the Apollo missions orbited the moon in the 1960s and 70s, they weren't able to see the entirety of the far side, including the lunar poles, all at the same time. They also did not prioritize capturing images of the far side when it was illuminated.

“When the Apollo missions launched, they prioritized launching into windows where the near side was illuminated because that’s where the missions landed,” Dr. Kelsey Young, lead for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said at a news conference over the weekend. “The far side was not illuminated at the time when they were in orbit.”

Young said last week that Artemis II will witness “definite chunks of the far side that have never been seen” by humans.

Make new friends, but keep the old.A new photo captures the Moon's near side on the right (the side we see from Earth, identifiable by its dark splotches) and its far side on the left. The Artemis II crew are the first to see the far side with human eyes. pic.twitter.com/Z8QaZ6J9iA

President Donald Trump made it clear on Monday what he thinks of Americans who don't support his war in Iran.

Just a third of the American public says they support Trump's war in Iran, according to a CNN poll from last week. Asked Monday what he thinks about those Americans, the president said, "They're foolish."

"The war's about one thing: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon," he continued, despite constantly changing the reasoning behind the war. In the same gaggle, Trump said he would prefer to stay in Iran so he could seize oil.

"Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home," he said, later adding: "If it were up to me, I'd like to keep the oil. I just don't think the people of the United States would really understand it."

This year’s White House Easter Egg Roll showcases a return of corporate branding across the children’s events.

According to a preview of the day’s activities, the White House is offering a “Bunny Hop Stage,” courtesy of YouTube, “Egg Coloring Activity,” courtesy of PAAS, “AI-Creation Station,” courtesy of Meta, “Cookie Decorating station,” courtesy of Signature Brands, and a “Coloring Road trip,” courtesy of Waymo, among other activities and corporations.

There's also a "Be Best Military Card Writing Station" and a "Be Best Ring Toss," both named after the first lady's "Be Best" public-awareness campaign.

The White House credited public- and private-sector partnerships for funding the South Lawn event, which dates back to the 1870s.

It’s the second year that the historic event has undergone a corporatization under President Donald Trump, who launched Monday’s event by praising a Marine’s performance of the National Anthem as an opportunity to “make a lot of money.”

Ethics experts last year dismissed the corporate sponsorships as blatant conflicts of interest, ones that never would have happened under prior presidents.

While fielding questions during the annual White House Easter Egg Roll Monday, President Donald Trump again threatened to commit war crimes in Iran and suggested he'd like to steal the country’s oil — all with the Easter bunny and first lady Melania Trump awkwardly looking on nearby.

"We are obliterating their country… and they just don’t want to say ‘uncle.’ They don’t want to cry, as the expression goes, ‘uncle.’ But they will. And if they don’t, they’ll have no bridges, they’ll have no power plants, they’ll have no anything,” Trump said.

The president then darkly alluded to “other things that are worse” that he’s apparently mulling over, and criticized the American public for not being more supportive of his preemptive war.

“If I had my choice, [I would like to] take the oil. Because it’s there for the taking. There’s not a thing they can do about it,” he said. “Unfortunately, the American people would like to see us come home.”

Asked if Melania Trump had anything to say about the children in Iran, the camera awkwardly panned to the left where she claimed we're at war for the kids themselves.

“All of this is happening for their future,” Melania said, standing next to an expressionless Easter bunny. “They will be safe in the years to come.”

Melania Trump: All of this is happening for their future. They will be safe in the years to come. Trump: We are fighting for the children who are in a war zone. pic.twitter.com/2GHTqA5nWM

The International Atomic Energy Agency has confirmed that military strikes from over the weekend narrowly missed an Iranian nuclear plant, warning on Monday that such activity could have severe consequences for the region's people and environment.

Independent analysis of satellite imagery taken Sunday reveals that multiple recent strikes hit close to Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant – including one impact less than 250 feet from the site's perimeter, according to the nuclear watchdog.

While the plant itself was not damaged, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned that continued military activity near the BNPP "could cause a severe radiological accident with harmful consequences for people and the environment in Iran and beyond."

The statement comes as President Donald Trump threatens to destroy Iran's civilian infrastructure – a war crime under international law – including the country's power plants. IAEA did not say who specifically launched the strikes near BNPP.

President Donald Trump kicked off the White House’s annual Easter Egg Roll on Monday by lauding egg supplies, Jesus, and the military’s accomplishments in the ongoing Iranian war.

"Today is a very special day. It's a day where we celebrate Jesus. It's a day where we celebrate religion,” he said, while standing beside the first lady and someone dressed as the Easter Bunny.

Trump, while launching the children’s event, boasted that the U.S. is doing better than ever before.

“I just want to say we have a great military, we’ve the greatest military, most powerful military of anyplace in the world,” he said, after commending the rescue of two U.S. pilots from Iran, which he said he will further discuss at a press conference later today.

He went on to brag about securing more than 40,000 eggs for the event, which he noted faced a shortage earlier in his presidency. He then praised the country’s claimed resurrection under his leadership.

“One year ago, a little bit more, our country was dead. We had a dead country. We had an administration that didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Today we have the hottest country of anywhere in the world, respected by everybody, and that’s the way we’re going to keep it,” he said.

Years before he had an affair with a staffer who died by setting herself on fire, Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) reportedly pestered another aide for sex.

A former staffer for his 2020 campaign shared text messages with the San Antonio Express-News in which Gonzales made sexual overtures and repeatedly demanded revealing photos.“I know what I want and won’t stop until I get it,” Gonzales wrote in one message that June. The staffer said Gonzales visited her apartment but that she rebuffed his advances.

Gonzales dropped his reelection bid last month under pressure from his Republicans colleagues, many of whom were disgusted by his affair with another staffer — a young woman who wound up killing herself by self-immolation in 2024.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Steve Bannon, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, on Monday won a Supreme Court order that is expected to lead to the dismissal of his criminal conviction for refusing to testify to Congress.

Prodded by the Trump administration, the justices threw out an appellate ruling upholding Bannon’s conviction for defying a subpoena from the House committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by a mob of Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol.

Read more from the Associated Press:

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