A day after the president said his super PAC would pay for the ads, which had drawn bipartisan backlash, officials said that he meant moving forward. A new taxpayer-funded ad aired Tuesday.

Senator Susan Collins, who supports abortion rights, endorsed Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination for the Supreme Court. It has emerged as a major issue in her campaign for re-election.

If everyone in the United States wasn’t living downstream from its consequences, it would be a pretty good tragic flaw that Donald Trump wants more than anything to be seen as a brilliant man who has ...