Senior National Security reporter, covering the Pentagon for @CNN. For tips, ping me at Signal username: zcohen12.87 Proud husband of @ValentineNews_
Washington, DC
Joined November 2010
- Tweets32.5K
- Following8.3K
- Followers42.7K
- Likes9.7K
Pinned Tweet
The Pentagon has given DHS permission to test a military-grade heat ray & develop tactics for potentially using it in operations at the southern US border, per a memo signed by SecDef Hegseth last month & obtained by CNN.
New reporting w/ @priscialva cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
We’re roughly an hour into the president’s remarks here in SC tonight & Trump has been interrupted by at least 12 protestors so far. They’ve screamed:
“F*** you!”
“Traitor!”
“You’re a criminal!”
POTUS has brushed them off with jokes & applauded law enforcement who have been quick to rush them out
Zachary Cohen retweeted
SCOOP: The State Department distributed new country assessments to asylum officers, arguing that conditions in some Latin American countries are no more dangerous than in major US cities. The new assessments will likely bear directly on asylum claims. cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
This is the opposite of what Elon Musk said last week.
Zachary Cohen retweeted
CBP officials have previously entertained the idea of using the system as a crowd dispersal tool in areas where there’s a high concentration of illegal crossings, but ran into hurdles over legalities, use of force, effectiveness, and potential issues over sovereignty.
The Pentagon has given DHS permission to test a military-grade heat ray & develop tactics for potentially using it in operations at the southern US border, per a memo signed by SecDef Hegseth last month & obtained by CNN.
New reporting w/ @priscialva cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/…
In 2018, prior to midterms, CBP officials also weighed using it against migrants, but then-Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen shot it down.
“The issue was treating immigrants and citizens like enemy combatants,” a former DHS official familiar with previous discussions about using the weapon against migrants told CNN.
The Pentagon has given DHS permission to test a military-grade heat ray & develop tactics for potentially using it in operations at the southern US border, per a memo signed by SecDef Hegseth last month & obtained by CNN.
New reporting w/ @priscialva cnn.com/2026/10/21/politics/…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
In private conversations, Donald Trump Jr. has repeatedly voiced his opposition to his father’s war with Iran, sources tell @vmsalama and @AshleyRParker: theatlantic.com/politics/202…
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth traveled to Israel in an unannounced trip, two sources familiar & a US official tell me & @talshalev1.
Hegseth met Monday evening with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz, per sources.
Representatives from the UAE were at one of the meetings, per Israeli source.
The Pentagon declined to comment when asked about Hegseth's travel to Israel.
Hegseth’s unannounced visit to Israeli comes days before the country holds its elections.
Trump recently gave his endorsement to Netanyahu calling him a “Great Warrior Prime Minister” in a post on social media.
Confirms @BarakRavid
Iran's claim the US struck an Iranian naval base is "inaccurate ... as usual," a US official tells me.
Vance says the President “did this because he believes it is very important, and I think he’s right…”
But then he tries to suggest the war with Iran has successfully ensured Iran “cannot have a nuclear weapon” (which is certainly not true at this stage) & that the polling data suggests voter discontent about the conflict amounts to disagreements over “the particulars of the policy.”
Vance says in ‘some ways’ US has ‘decisively won’ Iran war
thehill.com/homenews/adminis…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
Months after a deadly car wreck revealed the CIA's participation in a raid on a Chihuahua drug lab, authorities arrested César Jáuregui, Chihuahua's former attorney general, for allegedly allowing US spies to participate in the operation without permission from the Mexican government. cnn.it/4ed0rmw
To this point … even the last year’s strikes against Fordow & Natanz required an enabling capability in the form of ventilation shafts that led from surface down into the underground facilities below for the MOP to be as effective as it was.
The military is working to develop a “next generation penetrator” bomb to succeed the current MOP and potentially hit targets even more deeply buried — but that munition does not appear ready for deployment.
And remains unclear if the current version could penetrate deep enough to destroy whatever may be underground at Pickaxe: cnn.com/2026/09/09/politics/…
As sourcing pours in, the administration is trying to signal seriousness about wanting to strike Pickaxe Mt ☢️🗻
But that also requires having a serious conversation about the tool 🚀and target 🏭
Trump was the only US president to have used the MOP (GBU-57A/B) as well as the MOAB (GBU-43/B).
The first operational use of the MOAB was in April 2017 against an ISIS-K tunnel and cave complex in Nangarhar, Afghanistan. (Side note: months later, then IRGC-AF chief Hajizadeh claimed the Islamic Republic had developed the Father of All Bombs [a play on Mother of All Bombs, or MOAB]).
The first operational use of the MOP was in June 2025 against Iran’s Fordow and Natanz subterranean uranium enrichment facilities. (Side note: Iran is not known to be enriching uranium since that strike).
The MOAB is a 9.1 m long high-explosive bomb weighing 9.5 thousand kg (with payload of 8.4 thousand kg) designed to detonate above or near a target. As such it is an air-blast weapon.
The MOP is a 6.25 m long bunker buster bomb with a delayed fuze. It weighs about 13 thousand kg (with a payload of 2.6 thousand kg) and can penetrate soil, rock, or reinforced concrete (at different depths) before exploding.
Conversation about use of the MOAB against Pickaxe Mt. (which is well over 100 meters underground) versus previous use of the MOP against Fordow (which was 80-90 meters underground and made easier by sliding through ventilation shafts first) signals a desire to prevent access to the facility by impeding entrances and damaging the terrain near the site rather than destroying it and its contents internally.
To that end, a better comparison to such a strike is not Operation Midnight Hammer, but strikes against Iran’s missiles bases during Operation Epic Fury, some of which were destroyed, others were rendered inaccessible by US strikes against entranceways during the war. Admittedly, Iran dug out of some of these sites and was able to resume firing both during the war and after. But the US was not at all using ordinances this big/heavy against the fortified Iranian missile bases.
In this case, a charitable interpretation of the use of the MOAB against Pickaxe would mean the US intends to forestall further Iranian construction activity or access to the facility while continuing sanctions and hoping for a deal or submission.
Zachary Cohen retweeted
Lots of new reporting in this piece about Pete Hegseth's future political ambitions — and the risks that threaten them
Story w/ @jeremyherb @scontorno @ZcohenCNN @halbritz
cnn.com/2026/10/17/politics/…
New: Conversations with more than a dozen current & former admin officials, Trump allies, GOP operatives & people familiar with Pete Hegseth’s political orbit reveal he is taking steps that could set up a political future: cnn.com/2026/10/17/politics/…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
New --> US intel officials had to postpone a classified threat briefing for election officials after they couldn't get the video call to work. It would have been the first such briefing since the 2024 election. w/ @MarshallCohen cnn.com/2026/10/15/politics/…
Trump certainly does not seem to refute our exclusive reporting from earlier today when asked about it by @NEWSMAX.
And no, MOAB is not a nuclear weapon — as we make very clear in our story, which you can read here: cnn.com/2026/10/15/politics/…
Zachary Cohen retweeted
Exclusive: Ukraine has run out of missiles for the US-made Patriot air defense system, leaving it more vulnerable to Russian ballistic missile attacks, a source familiar with the situation told CNN on Thursday.
cnn.com/2026/10/15/europe/uk…
