On Thursday, law enforcement and the U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Florida announced charges against a brother and sister in the placement of a bomb at MacDill Air Force base, a key U.S. base amid the war in Iran as it’s home to U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) and U.S. Special Operations Command. This national security bombshell was of no interest to NBC (and barely at all to ABC) on their flagship newscasts Thursday night and Friday morning.
While 27-year-old Ann Mary Zheng was arrested, her brother Alen Zheng remains at large and fled to....China (which opens up a dangerous set of possibilities vis-à-vis the Chinese regime). At a Thursday press conference, the U.S. Attorney said they were not yet sure whether the two Americans have dual citizenship in China.
Thursday’s CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil provided a welcome contrast with a full story on this and aired prior to the ongoing lead story of the last few weeks in the (Democrat-created) Homeland Security shutdown that has caused mass chaos at American airports with TSA workers remaining unpaid.
“Also developing tonight, the FBI says it knows who placed a bomb outside MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa this month. The base key to U.S. operations in Iran and the indictments coming down late today. Two siblings charged, the sister arrested, her brother still on the run,” Dokoupil declared in an opening tease.
Dokoupil later began the segment by calling the development “major news” in the “potentially deadly explosive device found outside MacDill Air Force Base,” which “[t]he FBI says it was placed there by a 20-year-old man who has since fled to China.”
This segment on Thursday’s @CBSEveningNews with @TonyDokoupil was the only full report on a broadcast network morning or evening newscast about the indictment of two Chinese-Americans in the placement of a bomb at MacDill Air Force base, the home of CENTCOM pic.twitter.com/sOt1AwtOsa
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 27, 2026
Correspondent Cristian Benavides delivered even more stunning findings about the bomb and when it was found:
BENAVIDES: Tony, what is so frightening here is that officials say it took six days for this explosive device to be discovered. They say that it was real. It could have killed a lot of people, but for some reason it did not detonate. According to federal authorities, Alen Zheng planted an explosive device on March 10th near MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Minutes later, a 911 call reported a bomb had been placed on the base.
U.S. ATTORNEY FOR THE MIDDLE DISTRICT OF FLORIDA GREGORY KEHOE: The MacDill personnel searched the base and I’m the entire base and did not find the device at that time.
BENAVIDES: It was eventually discovered on March 16. By then, prosecutors say Zheng and his sister, Ann Mary Zheng had sold the black Mercedes used to transport the bomb to the base and fled to China.
Benavides explained Ann Mary Zheng had, for some reason, returned to the U.S. and, with authorities already onto her, she was arrested upon her return and “charged with being an accessory after the fact and tampering with evidence.”
In a second soundbite from U.S. Attorney Kehoe, he said an FBI search of their home “found” additional “IED components.”
After reiterating to viewers that the Tampa-area base “houses Central Command, in charge of military operations in the Middle East, including the war with Iran,” Benavides said officials had not yet revealed a motive.
“China does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. although it does negotiate in some cases, prosecutors say they don’t have any evidence that Zheng was working with the Chinese government,” the CBS reporter concluded.
Unfortunately, it likely wouldn’t come as a shock if, given the information already shared, some connection to Chinese intelligence or the CCP is discovered.
In the case of the aforementioned ABC, all they could muster was a 23-second news brief on Friday’s Good Morning America from news reader Will Reeve:
Friday’s ‘Good Morning America’ on ABC could only pull down 23 seconds on the MacDill bomb, speedily moving by the bombshell that the brother is still in China pic.twitter.com/9kEeDk4SVs
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) March 27, 2026
We begin [New at 7:30] with a brother and a sister indicted for allegedly planting an explosive device at McDill Air Force base in Florida. The device was found on March 16 outside the base’s visitor’s center. It did not go off. The siblings escaped to China but the sister came back. She is under arrest. The brother is still in China and the motive behind the plot is unclear.
Thursday’s NBC Nightly News focused heavily on the Savannah Guthrie interview, but they still found time for other stories, including a disturbed man driving onto a Daytona Beach tarmac and trying to forcibly board an airplane. To be fair, CBS’s Dokoupil also covered it, but he still found time for MacDill.
In the case of both NBC’s Today and CBS Mornings on Friday, they remained hot on the trial of a Hawaii doctor who allegedly tried (and failed) to murder his wife while hiking. But like with the Daytona drunk, ABC’s Good Morning America found time to cover the Lifetime movie in-waiting and a bomb that could have wreaked havoc at one of the country’s most important military installations.
To see the relevant CBS transcript from March 26, click here.
