Luigi Mangione, charged in the brazen murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, left behind a tantalizing digital footprint with few parallels in the history of famed assassins, Axios' Zachary Basu writes.

• Why it matters: Mangione's alleged crime and possible motivations have sparked nationwide debates over America's health-care system and culture of violence, which have already rippled through business and politics.

Journalists, investigators and true-crime obsessives are now poring through the 26-year-old's extensive and eclectic online history, and coming to very different conclusions.

• The emerging portrait is intriguing: High school valedictorian, Ivy League-educated data engineer, avid gamer, fitness buff, backpacker, amateur philosopher, victim of debilitating back pain.
• But it's also incomplete: Social media — which Mangione seemingly abandoned months ago — can only reveal so much about the true identity of any man, let alone an alleged killer.

🖼️ The big picture: In the immediate aftermath of Mangione's arrest, partisans of all stripes rushed to condemn — or trumpet, in the case of some edgy influencers — his perceived ideology.

• His posts had something for everyone: Conservatives saw an anti-capitalist San Francisco liberal. Progressives saw an "anti-woke" rich kid who aligned with right-wing futurists.
• But a comprehensive review of Mangione's digital footprint suggests his politics don't fall neatly into one box — and had fairly anodyne interests for a 20-something tech bro.
• He engaged with a range of heterodox influencers, many focused on holistic health, self-improvement, psychedelic mushrooms, tech's role in society, and general anti-establishment sentiment.

Zoom in: The most revealing online clue to what potentially drove Mangione is his experience with chronic back pain, which friends confirm caused major disruptions to his active lifestyle.

• On Reddit, Mangione shared that he had spinal fusion surgery in July 2023 — though his posts never mentioned any frustrations or anger toward the health insurance industry, according to the N.Y. Times.
• His final post appears to have been on the subreddit r/tedkaczynski — a forum dedicated to the Unabomber, whose anti-tech manifesto received a four-star review from Mangione on GoodReads.

🔎 Between the lines: Anyone with an online presence knows digital breadcrumbs can only lead you so far, especially when they get hoovered up in a criminal investigation.

• More than at any point in human history, evidence lies in plain sight: Rather than seek a subpoena for Mangione's library list, investigators can openly peruse his preferred books, podcasts and communities online.

But social media is also inherently performative. Mangione's persona is one that he curated — and reality is likely far more complicated than what he conveyed online.

• Share this story ... Meg Morrone and Scott Rosenberg contributed reporting.

The public trusts Anthony Fauci more than President-elect Trump and his incoming health team as a source of medical information, Axios' Adriel Bettelheim writes from the latest Axios-Ipsos American Health Index.

• Why it matters: The survey shows the public still sees a significant role for government in health care.

🔬 Zoom in: 60% or more of respondents say they have at least a fair amount of trust in information from the FDA, CDC or NIH.

• 45% report trusting information from Fauci.
• Fewer say they have the same amount of trust in information on health topics from Trump (32%), Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (30%), Elon Musk (25%), Mehmet Oz (23%) or others Trump has nominated to lead federal health agencies.

🥊 Reality check: RFK Jr.'s focus on safe food and nutrition clearly resonates with many Americans. They see chemicals and unsafe additives as a bigger health risk than climate change or infectious diseases.

• But support for his other positions is low. Just over a quarter of the public (29%) supports removing fluoride from water supplies.
• About 1 in 5 (18%) back ending vaccine requirements for attending public schools.

There's lingering dissatisfaction with health industries: 59% support banning TV pharma ads and 64% want insurers to cover prescription weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.

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For all their differences on Syria, President Biden and President-elect Trump are unlikely to handle the situation in radically different ways, Axios' Colin Demarest writes.

• Why it matters: Instead, expect shades of change between administrations — despite the isolationist banner Trump carried in the recent campaign.

Biden has 40 days and a wake-up left in office. So how the U.S. proceeds will largely be up to Trump.

• While the president-elect has said Syria "is a mess" and his base may support steering clear of Syria's chaos, certain national security officials won't.
• "Going forward, there's a pretty good chance his advisers say: 'Look, Mr. President, this ISIS problem is pretty serious. We need to take it seriously,'" Brian Carter, the Middle East portfolio manager at American Enterprise Institute, told Axios.

👀 What we're watching: Some 900 U.S. troops are stationed in Syria, where they're charged with rooting out ISIS.

• Trump might want to pull them out — he's promised to "end endless wars," a hazy metric.
• But he tried that in Syria during his first term — and wound up keeping hundreds of troops there to protect oil fields.

Keep reading ... Get Axios Future of Defense.

Approval rates for asylum seekers in the U.S. are dropping dramatically in the run-up to the second Trump administration, Axios' Russell Contreras writes.

• Why it matters: It's become particularly difficult for Latin American immigrants to get asylum.

The decrease reflects the Biden administration's new restrictions on asylum, and likely the anticipation of President-elect Trump's impending crackdown on immigration.

• New data also show that immigrants from Eastern Europe and Asia are far more likely to be granted asylum than those from Central and South America.

Keep reading.

A group of President-elect Trump's MAGA allies is seizing on his election to push a new ETF focused on investing in companies that reject DEI initiatives, which Trump has railed against, Axios' Sophia Cai writes.

• Why it matters: The exchange-traded fund — pitched to potential investors last week during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago — is the latest example of a Trump-inspired backlash to corporations and retailers that some conservatives see as promoting overly progressive social agendas.

State of play: Trump's team says the president-elect isn't involved with the ETF, which is dubbed the Azoria Meritocracy fund.

• But the fund's CEO and cofounder James Fishback is a friend of Trump ally Vivek Ramaswamy.
• Last week, Trump himself popped into the meeting of potential investors, who included Cathie Wood, founder of Ark Invest.

Fishback says the new fund will mirror the S&P 500 — but will exclude three dozen companies it sees as using DEI quotas in hiring or promotions.

• Share this story.

Melinda French Gates is donating $150 million to a battery of nonprofits to help remove barriers for women in the workplace, Axios' Emily Peck writes.

• Nearly a third of the cash will go toward advancing women in AI and the tech industry.

Why it matters: The announcement from Gates' nonprofit advocacy group, Pivotal, comes as companies are pulling back on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, which typically include gender.

• "Regardless of political party, we remain committed to our issues," Pivotal's vice president of program strategy Renee Wittemyer tells Axios.

Go deeper with Axios Markets.

Sen.-elect Jim Banks (R-Ind.) will push fellow Republican senators to be more pro-worker and pro-American-industry, and less pro-Wall Street, he makes clear in a forthcoming memo to colleagues, "Working Families First."

• Why it matters: Banks, 45 — an Afghanistan war veteran who's now a Republican congressman, and had a coveted speaking slot at the GOP convention — is a rising conservative star who'll have a big voice in next year's Republican-controlled Washington.

Banks writes that Republicans can't take America's working and middle classes for granted, and "should focus on priorities like building out access to apprenticeships and technical training or expanding Pell Grant opportunities to prepare for the workforce."

• Banks, who held an annual defense summit to promote Northeast Indiana's defense industry, adds: "Republicans owe the American people a detailed strategy to incentivize domestic investment ... and elevate the industrial base to the top tier of our national defense strategy."
• Read Banks' 2-page memo.

🎤 You're invited: Sen.-elect Banks will be among our guests tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. in D.C. for our final Axios News Shapers event of the year. We'll also talk with Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) and Sen.-elect Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio) about the post-election outlook for Capitol Hill. RSVP here.

⚡ Huge hire: Sen.-elect Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) has lured Mark Isakowitz, a Senate GOP veteran who's now a highly paid Google V.P., to be his chief of staff, Hans Nichols scooped last night in Axios Hill Leaders.

• Isakowitz, son of two Holocaust survivors, was chief of staff for Sen. Rob Portman in Trump's first term, giving him an insider's advantage in helping shepherd President-elect Trump's agenda.

Dina Powell, McCormick's wife, and Isakowitz have been friends for 30 years, going back to their early jobs on the Hill.

• Keep reading.

Former President Clinton and mega-selling novelist James Patterson are co-writing their third thriller together — "The First Gentleman," out June 2 — about the president's husband going on trial for murder.

• Why it matters: The story "will be told with Patterson's signature suspense and will be informed by details that only a president can know," the publishers, Alfred A. Knopf and Little, Brown and Company, say in a forthcoming announcement.

The writing partnership has already produced two bestselling novels. Their first, "The President is Missing," sold 3.8 million copies. That was followed by "The President's Daughter" in 2021.

• "The First Gentleman" isn't a sequel, and won't include characters from the previous books.

💬 "Jim and I always have a great time writing together, but we're admittedly pretty tough on our fictional presidents," Clinton said.

• "We've sent one chief executive into hiding to stop a global terror attack, and thrust another into a deadly firefight to protect his family. In our new book, we really take the gloves off."
• Patterson said: "When we first got writing — two presidential administrations ago — we simply could not have dreamt this one up."

Clinton is represented by Robert Barnett and Deneen Howell at Williams & Connolly.

• More on the book.