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An expert was appalled on Monday after President Donald Trump told one of his aides that he is considering ending the war in Iran without requiring the Strait of Hormuz to be reopened.

The Iranian regime has effectively blocked access to the Strait of Hormuz to U.S. and Israeli ships since the war in Iran began in late February. The waterway accounts for 20% of the global energy trade, and the move caused energy prices to skyrocket in the U.S.

MS NOW's Rachel Maddow identified a fascinating trend in this month's No Kings protests against President Donald Trump — and one that should leave the Republican Party terrified.

"There is now a 10-foot-tall golden toilet on the National Mall at the Lincoln Memorial. It says, quote, 'A throne fit for a king,'" said Maddow. "In a time of unprecedented division, escalating conflict and economic turmoil, President Donald Trump focused on what truly mattered: remodeling the Lincoln Bathroom in the White House. The plaque next to the 10-foot-tall gold toilet says Trump is, quote, 'an unwavering visionary who looked down, saw a problem and painted it gold.' The gold toilet president this weekend was also the target of one of the largest single-day nationwide demonstrations in American history. Organizers say more than 8 million Americans protested against President Donald Trump this weekend."

President Donald Trump has quietly retreated from his bombastic vow to choke off Cuba's oil supply, allowing a Russian tanker to deliver crude to the island and signaling the administration may let other shipments through, too.

The about-face, reported by The New York Times on Monday, comes after months of Trump threatening to take over Cuba entirely and declaring in January: "THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA — ZERO!"

Political analysts and observers were aghast on Monday after a new report revealed that President Donald Trump's Defense Secretary has reached a new "height of criminality."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's stockbroker looked into purchasing a defense-related fund ahead of the Trump administration launching its self-described "excursion" in Iran, the Financial Times reported, citing "three people familiar with the matter."

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are set to be deployed to Marine Corps graduation ceremonies in South Carolina — to screen for any undocumented people who might be turning out to celebrate their family members serving their country.

According to NBC News, "As the U.S. continues the war in Iran, the Marine Corps has boosted protection measures on bases, requiring everyone to present REAL IDs, U.S. passports or U.S. birth certificates to access any sites. Undocumented immigrants are generally ineligible for federal REAL IDs and don’t have U.S. passports or birth certificates."

President Donald Trump's threat to obliterate Iran's civilian infrastructure would almost certainly constitute a war crime, and may even backfire spectacularly, national security experts warned in a New York Times column published Monday.

Writing for the Times, W.J. Hennigan laid out the case that Trump's social media ultimatum threatening to destroy Iran's electrical generating plants, oil wells and desalination facilities if the regime doesn't open the Strait of Hormuz would violate the laws of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.

President Donald Trump shared a video on his Truth Social platform Monday that appeared to show extensive AI-generated mockups of a massive skyscraper housing his presidential library.

The video, set to soaring music, appeared to show a tower with a slight resemblance to One World Trade Center, with "TRUMP" at the top, featuring a grand lobby with Air Force One and a replica of the enormous ballroom he is planning to build onto the White House.

President Donald Trump is starting to seem like "he wants to go home early" from work as troubles mount for his administration, according to one analyst.

Michael Popok, founder of the "Legal AF" podcast, argued in a new "hot take" video on Monday that Trump's decision to launch an "excursion" into Iran has caused some serious headaches for his administration. For instance, Popok noted that Trump has faced bipartisan pushback for his decision to coordinate bombing strikes across Iran with Israel. The fallout from the war has also hurt Trump's economy and made his effort to replace Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell much more difficult.

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) has sent a cease-and-desist letter to FBI Director Kash Patel, following reports that the agency is planning to dig up old dirt on the congressman's previous involvement with a suspected Chinese spy.

"The congressman called for the FBI to agree within three days not to release the files, adding that any further action to release them could prompt him to take legal action," said the report. "The cease-and-desist letter followed a report from The Washington Post over the weekend that Patel had dispatched agents to review and redact the files in a potential move to ready them for a public release."

The GOP just proved that it can't govern its way out of the party's latest "feckless crisis," according to one analyst.

Chris Lehmann, Washington, D.C. bureau chief for The Nation, argued in a new column that the airport crisis that unfolded last week revealed how the GOP's "rake-stepping" during the partial shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security has allowed President Donald Trump to take more power from Congress. He pointed to the administration sending ICE agents to ease airport wait times and to Trump's abrupt announcement that TSA workers would be paid before the final DHS funding deal was reached.

A Guardian columnist drew a devastating parallel between Donald Trump's increasingly erratic behavior and the cognitive decline that ultimately ended Joe Biden's political career, and asked why no one in Washington seems willing to say what millions of Americans suspect.

In a blistering column published Monday, Gaby Hinsliff catalogued a string of recent Trump episodes that raised eyebrows across the political spectrum: rambling about Sharpie pens in the middle of a war cabinet meeting, making a baffling Pearl Harbor joke in front of Japan's prime minister, and calling the Strait of Hormuz the "Strait of Trump," then insisting it was deliberate.

Rep. James Comer (R-KY) told CNN's Jake Tapper on Monday that President Donald Trump's Department of Justice "botched" the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files, and that the MAGA movement is keenly aware of their shortcomings.

Comer and Tapper discussed the way Trump's DOJ has handled the release of the files during an interview on CNN's "The Lead." Tapper asked Comer whether he has any confidence in the DOJ's compliance with a law Congress passed last year that required the agency to release all files in its possession by December 2025.

Former GOP strategist turned Trump administration critic Tim Miller put the smackdown on Federal Communications Commissioner Brendan Carr on MS NOW, following the bureaucrat's far-right speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, boasting about how the agency is putting journalists in their place.

"You know, Tim, we have a lot of these conversations about the watchful eye I keep on the Manosphere," said anchor Nicolle Wallace, referencing influencers like Joe Rogan who once endorsed Trump but have increasingly turned on him. "It is harder to find a defender inside, sort of ... those late arrivers that you talked about than it is to find a critic. Do you think that they will like — it's an applause line at CPAC to say, you know, they defunded PBS and they took these sort of normal journalists off the air. Do you think it will extend if their censorship extends into one's friendly terrain?"