6/10/26: Putin Assassination Attempt, Bernie Candidate Wins In CA, Cuba Preps For US War

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0:04Emily Jashinsky:I turned off news altogether. I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. We got clear facts. Maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. There's a difference between liking a house and actually getting it. Redfin is built to make up that difference and close the gap between finding and owning the home for you. Redfin agents close twice as many deals as other agents. So when you find a home you love, you're not a step behind when it comes to making an offer.

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2:01We need your help to build the future of independent news media, and we hope to see you at breakingpoints.com. At the end of last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Ukraine had tried to assassinate him and his family Donald Trump confirmed that he believed that this had happened. Since then, we've heard almost nothing about it. We wanted to walk through this wild story that has just completely kind of evaporated from Western press attention. Matt Bivens, in his substack, The Hundred Days, wrote about it recently and put this first element up on the screen. The whole piece is worth reading.

2:42Emily Jashinsky:Former editor of the Moscow Times, I believe. Yeah, Matt, very serious reporter, and stitched together this timeline, which is quite wild. It's December 28th, and so a lot's going on then. You're starting to have the protests in Iran. Trump is meeting with Zelensky and also with Netanyahu in Mar-a-Lago and also capturing Maduro. Like, so tons, and plus it's the end of the year and nobody's paying attention. Everybody's checked out. I was skiing, as a matter of fact. Literally checked out. Literally checked out. I mean, I was checking in, but checked out. So it's easy to miss an attempted assassination of the head of a superpower or major nuclear power.

3:32Emily Jashinsky:Yes, especially when the government is trying to downplay it. Yeah, so what happened? So we put up D2 here, which is relevant. We'll come back to this. So Putin has ordered CCTV to be turned off around him because the U.S. and Israel appeared to use this in their assassination of Ayatollah Khomeini and others. So Putin, just because you're paranoid doesn't mean you're wrong. So on December 29th, Trump was asked about a claim that Putin had just made that Ukrainian drones had swarmed his family's compound and in an attempt to assassinate him. And here's what Trump said on next sitting next, standing next to Netanyahu on December 29th.

4:24The alleged strike on Putin's residents could scuttle the peace. Yeah, I don't like it. It's not good. I heard about it this morning. You know who told me about it? President Putin told me about it. Early in the morning, he said he was attacked. It's no good. It's no good. Don't forget, you know, the tomahawks. I stopped the tomahawks. I didn't want that. Because we're talking about, you know, it's a delicate period of time. This is not the right time. It's one thing to be offensive, because they're offensive. It's another thing to attack his house. It's not the right time to do any of that. So then a couple of days later, you put up D4, Wall Street Journal and others report that actually we didn't do this.

5:08Ukraine didn't do this. Didn't happen. So Trump was then asked about it again on Air Force One. You said that you were really very angry with the Ukrainian President Zelensky if he was the one who conducted that strike on Putin's residence. I don't believe that strike happened. Right. So Putin had said in that phone call to you that that strike happened. You came out and said that, and you believed Putin. There was some criticism. There is something that happened fairly nearby, but had nothing to do with this. Why did you believe Putin in that moment and then go say that about Ukraine? Because nobody knew at that moment.

5:42I mean, that was the first I heard about it. He said that his house was attacked. We don't believe that happened now that we've been able to check. But that was the first we ever heard about it. We just hope that Russia and Ukraine get it settled. You know, it's costing us nothing. In fact, we make money. So if you had a hard time hearing that, it's Trump saying, we don't believe that happened anymore. And so Putin says, OK, hold on a second. You think it didn't happen. We're going to roll D5 here. He released a video of what he says and what he says are Ukrainian drones that crashed in the in the forest.

6:23They released also a kind of a flight map that showed, I think, 91 drones that they counted that moved from Ukrainian positions to this this compound where the Putin's family was apparently staying. and offered, and they met with the American ambassador and said, you want to look at them? Go ahead. You can study them yourselves. Like, we shot down a bunch of these. Some of these crashed. Like, here they are. We didn't hear, you know, any, we don't know if the CIA ended up obtaining some of these or not. But Zelensky at the time called it a fabrication. He said, Putin is trying to blow up the peace deal that Zelensky and Trump were talking about in Mar-a-Lago.

7:12Putin said, no, Zelensky is actually trying to blow this up. Zelensky has now taken a different tune. On June 4th, he wrote a letter to Putin filled with a bunch of what might as well be expletives. He put up D7 here. Um, he, he writes in this letter, uh, this is Zelensky. We often hear that you are comfortable with this war. Of course, not in those cases when it comes to the security of your residence in Valdi or your parade in Moscow, your own life is valuable to you. Valdi is where the compound was, where his, where his family was staying and where Putin says, um, that they tried to kill him.

7:57He was asked, so also recently, a drone, which may have been Ukrainian, may have been Russian, we're not sure yet. I think it went into Romania. And it crashed into the top of an apartment building. And it injured, I think, a grandmother and her grandson with some burns on their arms. They're okay, but it was scary. You know, they hit a building. New York Times wrote about this big, giant Western coverage, like this errant drone that hit this NATO country. We need to do war about this. And so Putin was asked about this drone and in this press conference, and we'll play this for a second, but what he basically says is, okay, like, let me see the drone.

8:39We'll study the drone and you can just look at the drone and then you can figure out if it was Ukrainian or Russian. He's like, either way, it was a mistake.

8:45Emily Jashinsky:So U.S. people could look at the drone. Just go ahead and look at the drone. And he says, just like we did with the drones that tried to kill me, that we turned over the drones. So roll D8 here. The same is happening here, has happened here. And until we receive some objective data, like the data that we handed over to the representatives of the American administration, the data and the debris of the drone that hid the residents of the Russian president, So we gave the findings. If we receive these data from them, and then we can share our estimates of what happened. So not to say that Putin doesn't lie.

9:34Putin obviously lies. All presidents lie. Putin lies a lot. But in this case, he's turning over the material itself for us to examine.

9:46Emily Jashinsky:Assuming, I mean, sure, I guess it could have been tampered with. But yes, he's saying then you could examine whether it's been tampered with. And you can just like look at the like here. Here's here's a drone. We say it's crashed in the forest here. Yeah. Like, you know, here's our chain of custody. Like, I guess you can always just disbelieve everything. But at some point, like if you do launch 91 drones, like it's going to leave some evidence behind. Right. We also have the preexisting evidence that the president first seems to believe Putin. Right. And just one quick point on my end, Bivens points out, he says, in summary, in recent days, both Zelensky and Putin have again referenced an attack on Putin's home and family carried out by U.S.-supported Ukrainian drones.

10:26Emily Jashinsky:This is the same attack that Trump initially believed in but then scoffed at after the CIA formally told him it never happened, but it clearly did happen, which suggests, Bivens says, that the CIA is giving false briefings to the president. So that then becomes germane when you're thinking about Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, and all of these other places, China, Taiwan, around the world where we're in hot conflicts or potential hot conflicts about if John Ratcliffe and his CIA is under ODNI, outgoing ODNI and Tulsi Gabbard, where we know there are conflicts seemingly between ODNI and CIA, what information is getting to the president?

11:07Emily Jashinsky:That's extremely important. And obviously right now we should mention Ukraine is saying that missiles hit a military plant really far inside of Russia. So all the way like 560 miles from the front line, according to BBC. Yeah, I guess Tulsi Gabbard, ODNI. Maybe she can come on the show now that she's retired. She can talk about this assassination attempt. Like, I don't know if people quite understand the fire that we're playing with here. Yeah, I'm going to send a comment request actually on this right now. Excellent. All right. Get them to report back. Let's do it. Next up, Jane Kim. I turned off news altogether.

11:50Emily Jashinsky:I hate to say it, but I don't trust much of anything. It's the rage bait. It feels like it's trying to divide people. If we got clear facts, maybe we can calm down a little. NBC News brings you clear reporting. Let's meet at the facts. Let's move forward from there. NBC News, reporting for America. Love bread, baked goods, and pasta, but not the way they make you feel? What if I told you there are macro-friendly options that don't taste like sawdust and sadness? Satisfying sandwiches, fully loaded bagels, noodles that can stand up to your favorite chunky sauces. All delicious. Craveworthy and smart, each serving of Hero Bread has up to 19 grams of protein and 32 grams of fiber, and just 0 to 5 grams net carbs and 0 grams sugar.

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13:46See full terms at mintmobile.com. One of the least discussed but perhaps most important races in California that was decided recently may have been the one for insurance commissioner. There will be two Democrats that will move into the general election. One of them, Jane Kim, had the endorsement of Bernie Sanders and was running on a platform of insurance for all. And we're going to talk about what exactly that means. But first, let's start with a little bit of the message that she ran on to finish first in this top two. I'm Jane Kim. I'm running for insurance commissioner to fight for us. And I'm not going to take a dime from the insurance companies.

14:25I'm running to make insurance available for everyone to lower costs right away by capping excess profits and CEO pay and to write a plan to guarantee health care for every child in California. Joining us now is Jane Kim, the number one of the top two finishers for insurance commissioner. Ben Allen, state senator, was the second, I believe. He's welcome to join as well. But Jane, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So we wanted to talk to you because insurance is one of these and this is not health insurance for correct me if I'm wrong. Maybe there's some relation. Mm-hmm.

15:05Yeah. So this office oversees the$3.3 trillion industry, and it regulates all types of insurance but managed health care plans. Right. So we wanted to talk to you because insurance is one of those things that is not talked about very much, although everybody has to think about it whenever they're making any serious decision. They think about it when they get their bill every month. And it's right at the intersection of basically everything, climate, earthquakes, natural disasters, and the ability to kind of continue a functioning human civilization. Like it's that important, yet it's that under-discussed.

15:54California, as we think about it over here, is fairly corporate dominated. And so I'm curious, you know, how how you managed on a kind of anti-corporate campaign with an anti-corporate campaign, how you managed to kind of break through. What was the message that you were bringing that was able to kind of get get beyond the clutter that's usually thrown up by the insurance industry to make sure that they control this critical position? So this office was created in 1988 by the voters of California to be the backstop between 40 million Californians and this trillion dollar industry. And this industry is an industry that is doing quite well.

16:38In 2024, property casualty insurance netted$170 billion. And so this narrative that they're going bankrupt is just simply not true. Meanwhile, we are required to have insurance to drive to work or to school, to own a home or to open a business or a nonprofit of any kind. And the system is failing. Rates are going up. They're canceling our coverage. And even if we have insurance, they fight our claims every step of the way. And so we ran on the message of a more affordable California and that this office should be the champion of consumers and not a lapdog for billionaire corporations. And this message resonated across the state of California.

17:22We ran on a platform talking about new ideas, at least to the U.S., a single payer home disaster program guaranteed for all that is publicly run and nonprofit. We talked about expanding our already existing low-cost nonprofit auto insurance program and Medicare for Kids. And as you can see from our results, we're plus eight in the top two. We didn't just win in San Francisco, which is my backyard, which we're plus 18. We also won in Los Angeles County, where my main opponent resides. And we're in first place in Republican and rural counties across the state of California, which just showed that Californians are tired of the status quo.

18:02and they want to see someone who's going to champion a more affordable California.

18:06Emily Jashinsky:I think you made such an important point that you're required to have insurance to operate and to complete basic functions in the state of California and, of course, in other states. So can you tell us a little bit more about what you would be able to accomplish in this role? Like, what's possible? What gives you hope that you could actually do should you be elected? Yeah, so this is an executive office that regulates this industry. And by the way, there's zero federal oversight of insurance, which is also really interesting. So it's regulated by the 50 states. And it has this outside say on who gets to build wealth in this country, right?

18:44I mean, you can't drive to work without auto insurance. You can't own a home or open a business, as I mentioned earlier. And as was mentioned earlier, it sits at this very interesting intersection of this, what everyone is feeling, the wealth inequality, climate disaster and fairness. And ultimately what people want is they want a fair and level playing ground. And this is what this office can do. It regulates industry, sets the ground rules for how property and casualty industry plays in the state of California, the most populous state in the country. And so there's a couple of things that I have talked about.

19:25One, one of the biggest fights is around claims. And we're seeing this whether you live in the Palisades or in paradise. And so, one, I want to freeze your rates. when you file a claim, you shouldn't be penalized for using the business that you've been paying into often for decades. Second, I want them to pay you interest every day they deny, delay, or underpay a valid claim. That is actually a big part of their business strategy. Their main business is not really insurance. It's their banks. They take our premiums and they invest it in the bond markets. By the way, they're huge institutional investors in fossil fuel, which is driving climate disaster.

20:02And then they cancel coverage on the homes destroyed by it. So they try to keep their money in their float for as long as possible. So I also want to create a financial disincentive from doing that by having them pay you interest. The other is that we want to really cap their profits. And that's something that the insurance commissioner can do in the rate setting. You know, ACA mandates that 85 cents of every dollar repaying premiums goes back into paying claims, I think we should do the same for home insurance, maybe at$0.65 a dollar, not even as high, or an auto insurance at$0.75 a dollar. And making sure that, and by the way, currently in California, it's roughly around$0.49 of our premium dollars go back into paying claims.

20:43And make sure that they're not spending it just on shareholders, CEOs, and Super Bowl ads. So that's wild. So of every dollar that goes into the insurance industry in California, you know, 49 cents comes back in claims. What's the other 51 cents go to? Now, presumably, if I'm going to like kind of steel man, let's say the insurance industry argument, they'd say, well, for disaster insurance, they don't hit every year. You know, so we need to build up, you know, massive reserves so that when they do hit, that we can pay them off. So maybe you would need to stretch that out over a longer time horizon than one year.

21:21But like, so what are they? where's that other 51 cents going? How much is going to that reserve and how much is going to profits or to kind of the operations required to keep their cash flow business going? Okay. So let me start with their business model. So part of their revenue is, of course, our premiums. And by the way, at least in the last few years, our premiums have outpaced what they had paid in claims, despite, at least in California, some of the biggest fire claims payout in history. Two, they take our premiums and they invest it in what they call their float. So they invest it in the bond market or fossil fuels.

21:59And so all of this is a part of their revenue model. And they're doing exceedingly well. Every billionaire invests in insurance. It makes a ton of money. And so when I say 65 cents to a dollar, we're just talking about the premium revenue. And so the remainder goes to their shareholders. It goes to CEO pay. Of course, some of it goes to their reserves. It goes to their advertising. And what this office can do is that it can shine a light in terms of mandating that we understand where our dollars are going. And by the way, this message resonated in Tuolumne County and Nevada and El Dorado, which are more rural areas of California.

22:44And it did well in Republican counties like San Diego, Riverside, and in cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. Insurance industries don't treat you differently because you're a Republican. Everyone is feeling fleeced by the insurance industry. And they see their rates go up, they see their coverage get canceled, and then they hear about how much money these industries are making. And one example I'll just give is in April, Traveler, which is in the top 10 of property casualty industry, announced that they did so well just in the first quarter of 2026. They had$2.2 billion in excess capital.

23:20What did they do with it? They didn't provide discounts or refunds to their policyholders. They didn't invest back in the communities that they had profited from in the form of resiliency and fireproofing and bloodproofing, which would collectively make us all safer. They gave it all to their shareholders. And one of the reasons why I'm proposing a single-payer nonprofit, publicly-run disaster insurance program, guaranteed for every homeowner in California, is that I want to claw back some of those premium dollars that we're already spending and have them stewarded by the public. We would invest those premiums as well.

23:51And when we have excess capital, like New Zealand, we would invest it back into floodproofing and fireproofing and resiliency. And so there are two ways to lower your risk, right? Because ultimately, that is what is driving up the cost of insurance. If you want to make insurance affordable and available, you have to actually address risk. Private insurance market prices risk. And so we would take a portion of that revenue and actually invest it in making us collectively safer. While the private insurance market reduces their risk by canceling coverage on what they consider their sickest homes or their homes with pre-existing condition.

24:29And by the way, this is not our idea. This is modeled after what we see in New Zealand. France and Spain also have a form of a publicly run disaster insurance for all program. Canada, very interestingly, has single-payer auto insurance in some of their provinces. And they also use excess capital to invest in roads and filling potholes because they know that that also will reduce risks in the future. Yeah, there seems to be some real parallels there between the arguments for single-payer health care as well, that the The government would then be incentivized to do preventive medicine and to invest in clinics and other, you know, in primary care to try to make it so that people go to the ER less.