Trump news: Impeachment support swells as president forced into rare apology after hurling abuse at overweight supporter

Just yesterday, John Hickenlooper announced he was dropping out of the 2020 democratic primary race — but there is still some intrigue about the former Colorado governor.

The Democrats in his home state who have already jumped in the race in the hopes of winning the party's nomination to take on senator Cory Gardner next year have said they have no plans on dropping out, should Mr Hickenlooper decide to run for the Senate.

Mr Hickenlooper was among a handful of democratic governors or former governors hoping to win the 2020 democratic nomination — almost all of whom have been targeted by critics for not simply running for crucial Senate seats instead.

Barack Obama has avoided weighing in on the 2020 Democratic primary process, but a new report from the New York Times suggests he is taking an active interest in his former vice president's campaign.

Mr Obama, the newspaper reports, summoned top members of his campaign to his residence in Washington earlier this year, to get a briefing on the campaign's strategies for communication and digital media.

While Mr Obama has not offered an endorsement yet, he has apparently offered advice to Mr Biden's campaign at various times, and is watching it closely.

While Democrats have suggested that former White House communications director Hope Hicks misled the House Judiciary Committee about her knowledge of hush money payments made to an adult film actress on Donald Trump's behalf, Ms Hicks is standing by her testimony.

That's according to a long letter written by her lawyers, Robert Trout and Gloria Solomon, and delivered to Judiciary chairman Jerry Nadler on Thursday.

"She had no knowledge of, and was not involved in any conversation about, 'hush money' payments to Stormy Daniels during the campaign," the letter states.

"The information she provided to the Committee was truthful to the best of her knowledge and recollection," the letter continues, referencing her June testimony to the committee.

In the wake of the mass shooting in El Paso that was reportedly motivated by anti-immigrant rhetoric, an ex FBI intelligence officer has said that a top threat going into 2020 is right-wing extremism and white nationalism.

"If you want intelligence to be good on the current wave of domestic terrorism — what people call right-wing extremism, neo-Nazi extremism — I don't think people realize how tough that target is," Philip Mudd, the former FBI officer, told Hill TV.

On the 2020 campaign trail, Bernie Sanders is attracting a lot of young folks, according to a recent poll.

According to the Chegg-College Pulse poll, 29 per cent of Democratic voters attending college or university picked Mr Sanders as their top candidate. That's up from 32 per cent in April.

Elizabeth Warren (22 per cent) and Joe Biden (10 per cent) are the only other candidates who received double-digit support in that poll.

In some worrying news for Republican Steve King — who has come under fire for questioning when terms like "white supremacy" became controversial — his primary opponent, state senator Randy Feenstra, is getting some interest from fellow Republicans in Congress.

Representative Paul Mitchell, of Michigan, has announced that he plans on donating the maximum allowed to Mr Feenstra.

Mr King is also reportedly running into some problems raising money in the broader GOP, too.

The House Judiciary Committee has a lot on its plate as it investigates Mr Trump, but representative Jerry Nadler has announced that they will hold hearings on gun violence in September.

The committee is returning to Capitol Hilll before the end of the summer recess to debate gun reforms, after two deadly shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, two weeks ago.

On the immigration front, Democrats are seeking answers from the Department of Homeland Security regarding a report that pregnant asylum-seekers are being forced to wait out their immigration cases in Mexican border cities.

Leading that charge is senator Jeff Merkley, of Oregon, who wrote to the DHS insprector general on Friday asking why those women were not being allowed into the United States.

California, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Maine, and the District of Columbia have all filed suit against a Trump administration rule known as a "public charge" rule — which would deny immigrants green cards if they were thought to be likely to use public services.

The rule was rolled out on Monday, and the lawsuit claims the "rule stacks the deck against marginalized populations, such as children, students, individuals with disabilities, older adults, and low-wage working families."

In case you missed it, a new Fox News poll shows that Donald Trump would lose to Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, and Kamala Harris if the election were to be held now.

​That's pretty rough for Mr Trump, who is also facing down the potential for a US recession.