Mac Mailbox on iPhone 16 help - security delay despair!

I have my @mac.com email working on my MacBook and it worked on my old iPhone 11 Pro.

However, I just got a new iPhone 16 last week and I can't seem to add the @mac.com mailbox to my Mail app now. I tried adding my it how I added my other email accounts and it said my

password was wrong. I tried to reset it thru the iforgot way and it only asked it is wanted to reset my @icloud.com Apple account and they are seaparate so that was weird. I tried logging in via the icloud.com website and it says my password is wrong (though I checked my MacBook and it was correct).

In any case, trying to reset that password has proved ridiculously tiresome.

It says because I have Stolen Device Protection on, I have to have a 24 hour security delay to reset the password. But the delay finishes and I turn off Stolen Device and still have no way of resetting it and this just keeps happening over and over. I try to reset…24 hour security delay, no way to reset, repeat since Tuesday (5 days ago).

So my question is…is there a software change for the iPhone 16 that has affected @mac.com emails? Do you know a work around? It’s all nice having security features and everything but if they won’t let you reset your password, it’s not very helpful!

Anyway, I tried live chatting and calling Apple support and unfortunately they were not able to reset the password for me (which is frustrating- I was told bc Apple takes security so seriously…blahblah), so I am not sure how to access it on my phone.

As I said, since I can access it on my computer, I still can read the emails there, but I get a lot of job - related emails to my @mac.com email address so it is really inconvenient not to have access on my phone.

Anyone else have this issue / have any insights? It used to be relatively straightforward to get a password reset link so I am not sure why I am dealing with this!

TIA