Battle over US attorneys continues as DOJ fires new prosecutor in Northern New York
U.S. President Donald Trump gaggles with reporters while aboard Air Force One on February 6, 2026 en route to Palm Beach, Florida. Samuel Corum/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — The fight over the Trump administration’s appointment of U.S. attorneys has taken another turn with the Justice Department’s firing of a newly appointed U.S. attorney in Northern New York.
After the DOJ’s appointment of acting U.S. Attorney John Sarcone III ran out, a court on Wednesday appointed Donald Kinsella to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in that district, according to a notice from the court.
But just hours after Kinsella’s appointment, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche fired him.
The ongoing battle centers on who has the right to select the prosecutors who lead the nation’s U.S. attorneys offices, with the Justice Department appointing a series of acting attorneys general despite laws that don’t allow those positions to be filled by consecutive interim nominees without either Senate confirmation or appointment by the federal judiciary.
“Judges don’t pick U.S. Attorneys. @POTUS does. See Article II of our Constitution. You are fired, Donald Kinsella,” Blanche tweeted Wednesday, hours after Kinsella’s appointment by the court.
The head of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, Dan Scavino, tweeted that Kinsella should “check your email.”
Last fall a court found that Lindsey Halligan, a former White House aide who was appointed by President Donald Trump as interim U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, had been unlawfully appointed because the law doesn’t allow the position to be filled by two interim nominees in a row, in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s Appointments Clause.
After a federal judge threw out the indictments Halligan obtained against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James, Attorney General Pam Bondi filed an appeal this week arguing that she has the authority to address U.S. attorney vacancies.
Trump’s former personal attorney, Alina Habba, was disqualified in December from serving as interim U.S. attorney in New Jersey after the Trump administration sought to extend her appointment, and courts in Nevada and California have made similar rulings involving the appointments of acting U.S. attorneys in those districts.
Tucker Carlson, former FOX News host and current host of The Tucker Carlson Show, attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House on January 9, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Al Drago/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump’s decision to carry out strikes on Iran has further exposed a fracture among some of the president’s fiercest supporters inside MAGA world — one that many supporters say will only widen with every week the conflict continues.
Since the first strike last week, Trump’s actions in Iran have faced stark criticism from some of the most popular voices in MAGA media who helped boost his 2024 campaign, ranging from longtime adviser Steve Bannon to more recent converts like conservative media personalities Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly.
Watch special coverage on Nightline, “War with Iran,” each night on ABC and streaming on Disney+ and Hulu.
Prominent figures within the movement say the strikes have already tested the limits of their support, according to interviews with over a dozen leading voices inside President Trump’s MAGA coalition, who point to shifting justifications, no clear endgame, the specter of another Middle East forever war, and the use of American resources overseas versus at home as concerns that they warn will only deepen and carry a steeper political price the longer the operation lasts.
“He has a maximum of a month,” Natalie Winters, White House correspondent for Bannon’s War Room program, told ABC News. “After that people will start viewing this as just another dragged-out conflict.”
Since the strikes last week, the president and Trump officials have offered a creeping timeline for how long the operation in Iran could last, with Trump initially stating the operation was “ahead of schedule” and that the war could last “four weeks — or less.”
But in recent days the administration has signaled the potential for a much longer conflict, with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth stating this week that the operation had “only just begun.”
“We have only just begun to fight and fight decisively,” Hegseth told reporters. “Iran is hoping that we cannot sustain this, which is a really bad miscalculation.”
On Wednesday, Hegseth said the war could go as long as eight weeks or beyond, the longest timeline the Trump administration has offered thus far.
For a base filled with influential — and loud — voices who say they supported the president in large part because of his promise to avoid not just foreign intervention but “forever wars,” the administration’s shifting timeline has become a ticking clock.
‘They tell us it’s regime change’ Winters, one of the young rising stars on the MAGA right, has hundreds of thousands of followers on social media and has become a prominent voice on Bannon’s War Room, where she filled in as a guest host while Bannon was serving time in prison for refusing to testify before the Jan. 6 Congressional committee.
She joined the movement at 18, and while she covers the Trump administration for a pro-Trump outlet, she has not been shy about criticizing the administration on issues like the Epstein files and foreign military action.
Winters said her main issue with the war in Iran is that nobody can explain the goal.
“They tell us it’s regime change, but not regime change. It’s a war, but it’s not a war. But we can’t rule out boots on the ground. And if it we want it to be a forever war, it can be a forever war, but it’s not a forever war,” Winter said. “There have been no publicly made comments in the last four days to give me any comfort that this is not going to turn into [a forever war].”
Curt Mills, the executive director of The American Conservative, told ABC News that the longer the operation drags on, the worse it will be for the president’s standing with his supporters.
“It all depends on how long the war goes. I think you are going to see this start eating into Trump’s approval rating, beyond his core MAGA supporters. And that’s the difference between Sen. John Cornyn and Sen. James Talarico,” Mills said, referencing the war’s potential impact on critical Senate midterm races like the one in Texas, where the Republican primary between Cornyn and Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is now headed for a runoff.
The impact the war could have on the midterms appears to be one of the unifying concerns among influential voices on the right, who worry about the coalition of supporters that swept Trump into power in 2024. Jack Posobiec, a popular MAGA commentator and Turning Point Action official, told ABC News the president’s victory was built in part on two distinct groups: the traditional Republican base and a newer wave of younger, low-propensity voters who had never engaged in politics before, which includes the podcast and sports fan crowd that the campaign worked to bring into the fold ahead of November.
It is that second group, Posobiec warned, where the Iran strikes are landing hardest — making what is emerging inside MAGA also a generational fault line.
“For the younger end of the spectrum inside MAGA, foreign intervention is just off the radar. It’s not something they want to see because they see it as prioritizing foreign interests over populist interests,” Posobiec said. “They want to see economic relief as No. 1. They’re interested in Epstein, arrests, deportations — but anything to do with foreign intervention is just off the radar for them. When you get to say [age] 40, 45, you see the split in the other direction, where you do see more support for the president’s actions.”
Posobiec also said the divide comes down to younger voters fearful of a repeat of the interventionist wars of the George W. Bush era.
“There’s this huge shadow cast over anything to do with military intervention because of the Bush years. People just have massive indigestion over that. I’m a veteran myself and I totally understand,” he said. “Donald Trump is not George W. Bush. JD Vance is not Dick Cheney. You got to give them some credit for that.”
Backlash to the backlash
The dissent has not gone unanswered. Even as the criticism has grown, a counter-offensive of sorts has taken shape inside MAGA world, with other prominent voices pushing back against those speaking out.
Perhaps no voice within MAGA has defended the president and the Iran strikes more aggressively than Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who, while having her own history of criticizing the administration, has become the movement’s most visible counterweight to the growing dissent.
“A lot of these people are not even Trump supporters. They build up audiences lying to people, pretending like they’re conservative,” Loomer told ABC News when asked about the backlash to Iran.
Loomer, on X, has lavished praise on the operation in Iran, and has launched attacks at MAGA voices who have been critical. “I love President Trump. I would take anyone to the floor for the United States and for Donald J. Trump. I am always eager to throw down on anyone who works to undermine his plan to restore our country to greatness,” Loomer wrote.
In the days following the initial strikes, the president called Loomer personally, telling her he had spent the day on the phone with world leaders and generals but wanted to reach out to thank her for her support, according to Loomer.
“I said, ‘Congratulations! You’re a hero to the Iranian people, you’re a hero to the American people,'” Loomer told ABC News.
Loomer, who has emerged as one of the most influential pro-Trump voices, said the president also asked her how the Iran strikes were going over with his supporters. “What are people saying about it? I believe there’s overwhelming support for this,” she said Trump asked.
Loomer agreed with the president but told him there were “some people who aren’t happy about it, but they’re the general misfits,” specifically referring to Tucker Carlson, who had earlier that day told ABC News’ Jonathan Karl that the strikes were “absolutely disgusting and evil.”
“I asked him, ‘Are you aware of this? Tucker keeps going online about you and he called you disgusting and evil today,'” Loomer said.
Loomer said she was surprised to learn that at that time Trump was still not aware of the critical comments Carlson had been making, many of which she had been highlighting on her X account.
“He didn’t know any of the stuff,” Loomer said. “And so he asked me to send it over.”
Loomer said she then sent over information about what Carlson, and also Megyn Kelly, had been saying about the president. Later that day, Trump said in an interview that “MAGA’s not the other two,” referring to Carlson and Kelly.
Days later, Trump told ABC Jonathan Karl, “Tucker has lost his way” and that he “knew that a long time ago, and he’s not MAGA. MAGA is saving our country. MAGA is making our country great again. MAGA is America first, and Tucker is none of those things. And Tucker is really not smart enough to understand that.”
In the aftermath of the back and forth between Trump and Carlson, Loomer wrote on X, “Loomered,” taking credit for the blowback on Carlson.
Other prominent MAGA voices are now seeking to discredit the idea that any meaningful divide exists at all — creating a fight within the movement over whether there is a fight within the movement.
“This is all b——-, doomer, black pilled, liberal media b——- designed to fracture you before an election, to drive down approval ratings and voter enthusiasm, so Republicans lose and Donald Trump can get impeached,” podcaster and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino said on his show this week. “That is all this is.”
Some have dismissed the concerns as little more than the voices of a handful of dissenting podcasters — but others reject that characterization.
“I think it’s nonsense,” Mills, another longtime leading voice in the MAGA movement, told ABC News. “Say what you will, if you even took the extreme cynical view of Carlson, Bannon, Kelly — they’re businessmen. And they wouldn’t be doing this if there wasn’t a large audience for the message.”
“It’s demoralization at the margins that I’m worried about. It doesn’t tell us anything to say 80% of Republican voters support the Iran thing. You’re not fighting for the median Republican voter,” Mills said. “You lose 50,000 people who just don’t show up — you lose Georgia. Can they afford to lose point 5% of the vote? I don’t think so.”
‘Foundational to MAGA’ But there are some on the right who have actually been surprised the blowback hasn’t been louder. Earlier this week, Winters spoke out for the first time regarding the Iran strikes during an appearance on Bannon’s War Room, delivering what she believed to be measured criticism of the administration’s efforts and saying, “I’m as MAGA as it gets. We love Trump, but it’s fair to ask for clarity.”
“If this turns into another dragged out kinetic conflict, that’s not what we voted for,” Winters said.
Winters said she was shocked by the immediate backlash she faced online for her comments. “The comments were pretty rough. Which is wild, my commentary was pretty measured,” she said, adding that she had also been “smeared as a MAGA sycophant and cultist. It’s very frustrating. I could not have been more measured. I literally read the administration’s quotes.”
Given the gravity of the issue, Winters said she has been surprised that the outcry from the base hasn’t been even more forceful.
“The debate over the Epstein files created more political blowback on the administration than what they’re doing in Iran, standing on the brink of a potential forever war,” she said.
“And seeing the base not more outrageous about that — it’s pretty wild, because that’s a tenant that’s foundational to MAGA.”
People tend to a memorial for Renee Nicole Good near the site of her shooting on January 8, 2026 in Minneapolis. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)
(MINNEAPOLIS) — Renee Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis mom fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis on Wednesday in an alleged vehicle-ramming incident, “sparkled” and “was made of sunshine,” her wife said in an emotional statement to Minnesota Public Radio.
Becca Good told MPR Friday that on Jan. 7., she and her wife “stopped to support our neighbors” before the incident, which was caught on video and has sparked outrage and protests, occurred.
“We had whistles. They had guns,” she said, according to the statement.
Videos of the incident where Good is seen in her maroon Honda SUV as ICE agents confronted her have gone viral and sparked outcry from people around the country who say that Good was unnecessarily killed.
According to Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin, Good was allegedly “attempting to run over our law enforcement officers” with her car when an ICE officer fatally shot her.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz have disputed the federal government’s claims surrounding what led up to the shooting, saying video of the incident shows the agent’s actions were not self-defense.
Messages of sympathy for Renee Good have been pouring out since the shooting.
“Renee lived by an overarching belief: there is kindness in the world and we need to do everything we can to find it where it resides and nurture it where it needs to grow,” Becca Good said in her statement.
“Renee was a Christian who knew that all religions teach the same essential truth: we are here to love each other, care for each other, and keep each other safe and whole,” she added.
Renee Good was a 2020 graduate from Old Dominion University in Virginia, according to the school’s president, Brian Hemphill, who said it is “with great sadness that Old Dominion University mourns the loss of one of our own.”
She graduated from the College of Arts and Letters with a degree in English, according to Hemphill.
“May Renee’s life be a reminder of what unites us: freedom, love, and peace,” he said in a statement. “My hope is for compassion, healing, and reflection at a time that is becoming one of the darkest and most uncertain periods in our nation’s history.”
Walz said that Good is survived by a 6-year-old child. During a news conference Thursday the governor offered his “deepest sympathies” to her family “on an unimaginable tragedy.”
Renee Good was also the mother of two other children, according to her wife. The 6-year-old’s father died, according to Becca Good.
“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him. That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way,” she told MPR.
Becca Good told MPR she and her wife moved to Minnesota “to make a better life for ourselves.”
“Our whole extended road trip here, we held hands in the car while our son drew all over the windows to pass the time and the miles,” she said.
Becca Good talked about the “vibrant and welcoming community,” the two met once they arrived.
“Here, I had finally found peace and safe harbor. That has been taken from me forever,” she said.
“We were raising our son to believe that no matter where you come from or what you look like, all of us deserve compassion and kindness. Renee lived this belief every day. She is pure love. She is pure joy. She is pure sunshine,” Becca Good added.
DHS, along with President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, has called the agent’s actions “self-defense” and said he followed ICE training.
Noem said during a press conference on Wednesday that Good was using her car as a “deadly weapon” and said it was an “act of domestic terrorism.”
Minneapolis police said preliminary information indicates that she was in her car and blocking the road.
“At some point, a federal law enforcement officer approached her on foot, and the vehicle began to drive off,” police said. “At least two shots were fired … the vehicle then crashed on the side of the roadway.”
“There is nothing to indicate that this woman was the target of any law enforcement investigation or activity,” police added.
Becca Good told MPR that on Jan. 7. she and her wife “stopped to support our neighbors.”
“We had whistles. They had guns,” she said.
Renee Good suffered gunshot wounds to the head and was transported to an area hospital, where she died, according to city officials.
Following the shooting, a large crowd gathered in the area, which is less than a mile from where George Floyd was killed in May 2020.
Gov. Walz said he has issued a “warning order” to prepare the Minnesota National Guard, saying there are soldiers in training and prepared to be deployed “if necessary,” while urging “peaceful resistance.”
(NEW YORK) — Two men were fatally shot and two others were injured in a shooting Wednesday at a New Jersey recording studio used to make music videos, according to officials.
The deceased victims were identified by investigators as Namir Bynum, 20, and Osayuwamen Uyamu, 20.
Bynum was pronounced dead at the scene while Uyamu was taken to University Hospital in Newark and pronounced dead shortly after, according to the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.
Police have not said if the suspects in the shooting have been identified.
Essex County Prosecutor Theodore N. Stephens II said the shooting was “contained within that particular establishment.”
The incident stemmed from an incident “between friends” on Wednesday, the studio, Platinum Sound NJ, wrote in a post on social media.
Referring to an unnamed victim, the studio said “keep bro in yall prayers! Dont blame him for none dat took place today,” saying the shooting was a “a very misfortunate slimy situation,” the studio said.
Those injured were taken to University Hospital with non-life threatening injuries, according to the prosecutor’s office. One of the victims was treated and released.
An investigation into the incident remains ongoing, according to police.
