MSN

President Donald Trump signed a proclamation restoring competitive fitness tests for schoolchildren, and the Oval Office event caught many viewers by surprise.

The 79-year-old president veered off-topic from the Presidential Fitness Test Award to discuss golf, auto racing and other subjects found in a newspaper's sports section, and he also made some eyebrow-raising claims about the Iran war to the group of government officials, celebrities and children.

President Donald Trump was joined by several children in the Oval Office Tuesday to celebrate his signing of a proclamation to restore the Presidential Fitness Test award, during which he deviated from the topic of youth sports to discuss his wildly unpopular war against Iran, turning to one of the children as he made his case for the conflict.

After championing his revival of the competitive school-based fitness program, Trump touted his administration’s accomplishments, claiming that the country “is doing great” and “breaking records,” while also lamenting it as being “too bad” that he had to authorize an attack on Iran in late February.

Sherrod Brown's return to Ohio politics represents Democrats' best chance in years to reclaim ground in a state that has become reliably Republican, despite the formidable challenge of running in terrain reshaped by Trump's electoral dominance.

Brown, who won more votes in Ohio than his party's 2024 presidential nominee despite losing his Senate seat two years ago, is mounting a special election campaign against Republican Jon Husted to fill the seat vacated when JD Vance became vice president, reported MS NOW. The race, along with the gubernatorial contest featuring Democrat Amy Acton against Trump-endorsed entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, offers Democrats a rare opening in a state that has drifted dramatically rightward.

Rep. Glenn Grothman (R-WI) argued that ordinary people on food stamps shouldn't be able to afford "top of the line foods."

During a segment on Newsmax this week, host Rob Schmitt recalled that the Supreme Court had banned race-based college admissions.

Political analysts Joanna Coles and David Rothkopf discussed President Donald Trump's deteriorating mental and physical health, highlighting a moment where Melania Trump appeared to reject his attempts to hold her hand.

In a conversation during The Daily Beast Podcast, Coles noted Trump's need to cling to Melania for stability -- while descending the White House's stairs -- pointed to significant health concerns. She observed the moment when Melania initially pulled her hand away, before reluctantly taking it when necessary for the stairs. This dynamic, suggests visible disdain, argues Coles.

The final oil shipment out of the Strait of Hormuz arrived in California on Monday, sparking a major turning point for gas prices in the United States, several analysts and experts warned.

"The war in Iran and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz has actually been buffered by the fact that all of these tankers were at sea at the time that the Strait of Hormuz closed," said Michael Ross, a professor of political science at the University of California, Los Angeles, speaking with ABC.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth raised eyebrows in Tuesday morning's press briefing on the war in Iran.

The Pentagon chief told reporters the effort to guide commercial ships through the Strait of Hormuz was temporary and “separate and distinct” from the ongoing Operation Epic Fury, and Hegseth said the U.S. intended to hand over the responsibility for the waterway to other countries – which critics thought sounded like terms of surrender.

At the end of a brief and subdued Pentagon press conference on the Iran war, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth cut off a reporter from Zero Hedge for suggesting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu will “pull” Donald Trump back into escalating the conflict.

Toward the end of a long question from a reporter identifying himself as being from Zero Hedge, the former Fox News personality was asked, “Netanyahu put this on Twitter, Israel's head of Mossad said Israel's goals are not finished until the Iranian government collapses,” followed by “… how can you ensure America doesn't get roped back into a war if that comes? And secondly, with Netanyahu comfortable tweeting something like that out? And also, Netanyahu has continued bombing Lebanon despite President Trump, I would say your —.”

President Donald Trump hosted 130 small business owners at the White House Monday in honor of National Small Business Week, but what was supposed to celebrate entrepreneurs quickly derailed into a lengthy diatribe about the U.S. war against Iran, one that journalist Prem Thakker suggested undermined the president’s position.

Trump has repeatedly called his war against Iran a military “excursion” – a potential mix-up with the word “incursion” – and has avoided, in some cases, labeling the conflict as a war.