Good morning, Quartz readers!
Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign has been extraordinarily successful. The ex-FBI director has racked up convictions or guilty pleas for several figures at the very top of the campaign, including one-time 2016 campaign chair Paul Manafort, Trump’s former personal lawyer Michael Cohen, former national security advisor Mike Flynn, and senior campaign official Rick Gates.
We know that Trump and Cohen discussed building a Trump Tower Moscow until far into the campaign—and that Cohen talked to a Russian official about it. We know they tried to meet Vladimir Putin in September 2015. We know, from an investigation spun off from Mueller’s office, that Trump directed Cohen to commit campaign-finance crimes by paying off women who say they had affairs with him.
Findings like these could well have sunk other presidents, yet the American public remains resoundingly unfussed—Mueller’s approval rating is polling at just 43%. A couple of factors explain this. The first is Trump himself, for whom the bar is exceptionally low. He came to office loaded with baggage, including multiple bankruptcies and decades of allegations of shady dealings.
Trump’s messaging strategy, meanwhile, has set monumentally high standards for Mueller’s investigation. The president has claimed in at least 20 tweets that Mueller doesn’t have “evidence” of crimes committed by him. The circumstantial evidence of his wrongdoing is becoming overwhelming. Yet even Trump’s opponents are now holding out for that smoking gun.
What’s more, by repeatedly screaming “NO COLLUSION,” Trump has painted the investigation as being about something that legal experts say isn’t even a crime—rather than, say, obstruction of justice.
That wouldn’t be much of a defense in court. And chances are that Trump won’t have to defend himself in front of a judge. Justice Department policy is that the Constitution prohibits indicting sitting presidents, meaning that Trump’s jury is Congress—lawmakers who base their views in large part on those of the American people.
So, while Trump’s angry, repetitive tweeting into the abyss seems crass, the way he has framed the debate could be what saves him. —Max de Haldevang
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Would you bet against Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Berkshire Hathaway? You might if the wager is on whether they can fix US healthcare. Still, there’s never been a more powerful set of private employers ready to try for reforms, with renowned surgeon Atul Gawande spearheading the efforts. Elijah Wolfson examines the most screwed-up employee perk in America—and the man who just might fix it.
Where the future of electric cars is rapidly becoming the present. China is on track to sell more than 1 million electric vehicles in 2018—nearly as much as the rest of the world combined—and has invested heavily on achieving global dominance. In a collection of reports for Quartz members, Akshat Rathi and Echo Huang explore the market, visiting the Shenzhen factory of the world’s largest EV maker along the way.
Porn sites are tracking your every move. Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime have nothing on the leading porn players when it comes to mining user data. Where you pause a video, which parts you repeat—all of it is recorded in meticulous detail. Aisha Hassan explains what companies like MindGeek, which runs a near-monopoly of streaming porn sites, do with this trove.
The Koch family member who eschews politics for neuroscience. The Koch brothers, Republican mega-donors, are among the most influential people in the US. So it might seem surprising that Elizabeth Koch, daughter of Charles, struggles with existential questions. But as Ephrat Livni reports, growing up with extreme privilege has informed her decision to establish a neuroscience nonprofit and a conference on consciousness—and to search for ways to step outside of her own experience.
Why widescreen feels epic. In the early 20th century, Americans went to the movies all the time—not to see a particular film, necessarily, but just to watch whatever was playing. In a Quartz video, Adam Freelander explains why that changed (no, not because of TV) and how the widescreen format came to mean an epic experience. He puts our relationship with smartphone screens into context, too.
Five things elsewhere that made us smarter
The deal that made Fox such a force in US television. Fox started as a small, rickety network. That changed after Rupert Murdoch secured the rights to broadcast NFL games in 1993, stunning observers by offering $400 million per year. As Bryan Curtis writes in the Ringer, that led to big changes in how Americans view football, and to Fox becoming a TV empire.
The biggest lies in tech in 2018. A year ago, cryptocurrencies enthusiasts were screaming “hodl” (their way of saying don’t sell). Then bitcoin plunged dramatically from its high of $20,000. For Gizmodo, Rhett Jones outlines that and other “deceptions” witnessed in the past 12 months, touching upon pseudo-monopolies, artificial intelligence, and one market-shaking tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
How General Electric burned out. GE was once America’s biggest company, making power turbines, selling insurance, and even broadcasting Seinfeld. For decades it seemed invincible, surviving depression, world war, and globalization. In the Wall Street Journal, Thomas Gryta and Ted Mann show how the company became a shadow of its former self (paywall).
An overlooked turning point in Myanmar. Hopes for genuine democracy and ethnic harmony have been shattered. For Reuters, Tom Lasseter examines a pivotal moment: the assassination of Muslim lawyer Ko Ni in 2017. An adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi, he’d been calling for reforms to reduce the military’s dominant role in government. The official narrative, that his killers acted in isolation, doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
Mirror mirror on the wall. Scientists have long used the “mirror test” to measure self-awareness in animals. If a creature is preoccupied by the reflection of a strange mark on their body, they are considered conscious. However, Elizabeth Preston at Quanta explains, now that a clever fish can do this, some researchers are questioning the test. Others wonder if human cognition is too limited to get how consciousness manifests in other living things.
Correction: Last weekend we attributed Breaker’s article about a crypto-investors cruise to Laurie Red. Her name is Laurie Penny (@PennyRed).
Our best wishes for a relaxing but thought-filled weekend. Please send any news, comments, tech lies, and self-aware fish to hi@qz.com. Join the next chapter of Quartz by downloading our app and becoming a member. Today’s Weekend Brief was edited by Steve Mollman.