The president has often said he is exceptionally smart. His recent suggestion about injecting disinfectants was not.

In the final moments of his presidency, Mr. Trump is confronting an unfamiliar fate: He is being held to account as never before for things he has said.

As the former Texas congressman weighs a run for president, his rebel-in-moderation youth offers revealing parallels to his search for direction now.

The president’s penchant for defying convention was on vivid display even during the solar eclipse, when he discarded advice about averting his eyes from the sun.

Ms. Warren was accused of impugning a peer when she condemned Senator Jeff Sessions’s nomination for attorney general while reading a letter from Coretta Scott King on the Senate floor.

Preparing to assume the presidency in a divided country, Joe Biden confronts the ultimate test of his principal theory of governance: that compromise is good and modest progress is still progress.

TV’s spike-haired rhapsodist of roadside eats is still playing it for laughs. But he’s also winning food-world respect as a sort of graying eminence.

The music came on. The clothes came off. And an airport strip club claimed its piece of the American presidency.

Trump has called Biden a tool of leftist agitators. Friends say that has never much been his way, even as a young man surrounded by protest.

To many in the capital, the pornographic film actress has become an unexpected force. But those who know her well view the moment differently.

He preferred the parts of the job that combined pomp, splendor and a world amenable to his decisions. In other words, he always seemed to genuinely enjoy pardoning turkeys.

Mr. Burr, the unobtrusive chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, is moving into a spotlight he never expected and does not seem to relish.

In a swing county of a swing region of a swing state that powered Donald J. Trump’s victory, some residents are starting to regret having supported him.

To many New Yorkers, he was their brash and blustery mayor. But friends are now describing the private strain endured by a public man laboring to conceal his sexual orientation.

As the former Texas congressman weighs a run for president, his rebel-in-moderation youth offers revealing parallels to his search for direction now.

She grew up around Berkeley activists but came to believe working from inside the system had greater power to effect change.

Last year, Democrats and Republicans alike agreed that if anyone could bring order to the Trump administration, it was the retired four-star Marine general. Were they wrong?

Washington was braced for high drama as the deposed F.B.I. director testified before a Senate committee. And James Comey delivered, with a gift for narrative and a dose of humility.

He’s now one of the most consumed media products on the planet. His Spotify deal, estimated at $100 million, speaks to the allure of making audiences feel they’re in on something subversive.

In 1988, Joe Biden was prone to embellishment. Hints of that linger today. But unlike then, his message to voters is clear: He’s a stabilizing statesman in a tumultuous time.

A face-off with Joe Biden devolves into an ugly shouting match as President Trump, characteristically, makes it all about him.

TV’s spike-haired rhapsodist of roadside eats is still playing it for laughs. But he’s also winning food-world respect as a sort of graying eminence.

The actress-turned-candidate for governor is trying to persuade skeptical New York Democrats to see beyond her political inexperience, as some did with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Are the polls tightening? Aren’t the polls wrong anyway? Why hasn’t Biden been doing more? What if Trump throws the results into chaos? How is the presidential election still two months away?

His entire political career has been marked by personal loss. His allies say that makes him uniquely capable of leading a nation grappling with death.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Gore discussed climate change and urged young adults to vote because, as Mr. Gore learned in Florida in 2000, every vote counts.

The president’s first address to Congress — even one often mild in tone, by his standards — was always going to be different. He has that effect.

Election Day came to a close with no clear winner, but it affirmed the persistence of deep national divisions.

The New York mayor turned quixotic presidential candidate seems sick of his city — and the feeling is mutual.

President Trump’s health news brought on, for many, the kind of psychic doom-spiraling that has felt endemic to the era.

A primer on the kinds of conversations journalists have with sources.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, the Illinois Democrat has carved out a public life most evocative of the man she could join on the presidential ticket.

Despite their disparate backgrounds, the Illinois Democrat has carved out a public life most evocative of the man she could join on the presidential ticket.

For years, a blue Texas has seemed both impossible and inevitable. Have the political winds there finally shifted enough for an unapologetic liberal to win a Senate seat?

Candidates are not permitted to haul field organizers or canapés or record-reframing ad campaigns onstage with them. So the former mayor will stand on his own.

If voters reject him next month, this will be the chief reason: The 2020 campaign is different, and Donald Trump is not.

Mr. de Blasio’s marriage helped fuel his campaign for mayor of New York, and his intense personal and political bond with his wife drew admiration and scrutiny.

Behind the scenes, the governor vacillated between defiant and defeated, eventually accepting that his formidable political army had fallen away.

More than three decades after his first presidential run, in the midst of a deadly pandemic and without his son Beau at his side, the former vice president has met his moment.

The former vice president had the Super Tuesday of his dreams, winning in places he hasn’t even set foot in recently.

As he prepares for re-election next year, Senator Ted Cruz faces a challenge in helping millions of people — in his hometown, Houston, and beyond — rebuild after Hurricane Harvey.

The Florida governor wanted to show off his tech savvy by announcing his presidential campaign on Twitter. It quickly devolved into the conference call from hell.

On a Friday, the world heard vulgar audio of Mr. Trump boasting about forcing himself on women. By Sunday night, the episode that was supposed to doom him had begun to recede.

Doug Jones is trying to run a typical Senate campaign in an entirely untypical environment.

Mr. Miller, who was a conservative trapped in a liberal California high school, has rocketed to the upper reaches of White House influence, especially on immigration.

At a Supreme Court confirmation hearing, Democrats are expected to draw attention to instances they say highlight Judge Neil M. Gorsuch’s tendency to favor the powerful.

The former F.B.I. director wants an end to the Trump presidency. And yes, he knows you might think he caused it.

Mr. Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, held an eight-point lead in a new Times poll over Mr. O’Rourke, his Democratic challenger, in one of the most closely watched Senate races this year.

To many in the capital, the pornographic film actress has become an unexpected force. But those who know her well view the moment differently.

Visitors from Vero Beach, Fla., witnessed two days of political meltdown as the Republican bill to replace the Affordable Care Act failed to come to a vote in the House.

The New York mayor turned quixotic presidential candidate seems sick of his city — and the feeling is mutual.

Susie Wiles helped Ron DeSantis become governor of Florida, but he turned against her and banished her from his orbit. Donald Trump was all too happy to bring her in from the cold.

Ms. Gillibrand, a senator from New York, has seen her rising star lifted higher by her run-ins with President Trump over his treatment of women.

Defeating President Trump can do strange things for a man’s reputation.