Trump Channels Nixon, Crisis in Nigeria, Music to Kill Cynicism

Coming up on today’s show:

• Last night at 7:15 PM Eastern, Donald J. Trump officially became the Republican Party’s nominee for president of the United States. We get the latest from the Republican National Convention in Cleveland from Takeaway Washington Correspondent Todd Zwillich.

• Donald Trump’s candidacy has evoked a number of historical comparisons, from George Wallace and Ronald Reagan, to Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi. Now, the Trump campaign appears to be turning to Richard Nixon. But Rick Perlstein, a historian and author of “Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan,” says The Donald is still too difficult to define.

• In December, a new secretary general will take the helm of the United Nations, but the election comes at a difficult time for the U.N., which has been criticized for not doing enough to protect the world’s most vulnerable people. Jean-Marie Guéhenno, president of the International Crisis Group and author of “The Fog of Peace: A Memoir of International Peacekeeping in the 21st Century,” weighs in.

• In northeastern Nigeria, violence and disruption by Boko Haram has caused widespread food shortages. The region may be on the brink of famine, and the U.N.’s children’s agency, UNICEF, says that up to 50,000 children could die in northeast Nigeria unless they receive treatment soon. Chris Stein, the Nigeria correspondent for Voices of America, has the details on this story. 

• What does the future of the Republican Party really hold? We’re putting that question to Alexandra Smith, chair of the College Republican National Committee and an alternate delegate at the GOP’s convention.

• A doping scandal has prompted the world’s top anti-doping body to ask for the entire Russian delegation to be barred from the summer Olympic Games in Rio, which begin in less than three weeks. Here to explain is Dr. Roger Pielke, Jr., a political scientist and and author of the upcoming book, “The Edge: The War Against Cheating and Corruption in the Cut Throat World of Elite Sports.”

• Despite the rise of far-right nationalism in Europe, and the thinly-veiled demagoguery of Donald Trump’s ambitions to “Make America Great Again,” musician Billy Bragg remains optimistic. The Takeaway continues its summer protest music series with Bragg, an English singer, songwriter, and activist whose music has intersected with politics for decades.