Trump’s Long Game, DOJ Pivot, The Comfort of Jazz

Coming up on today’s show:

• After Donald Trump tapped Breitbart’s Stephen Bannon to head up his campaign this week, several experts are a speculating that Trump is maneuvering to create his own conservative media empire that would sustain him if he lost in November. Is there any truth to these claims? Sarah Ellison, contributing editor at Vanity Fair and author of “War at the Wall Street Journal,” answers.

• After Univision announced this week that it would be acquiring Gawker Media properties for $135 million, Gawker.com announced it would cease to exist beginning next week. What are the broader implications of Peter Thiel’s lawsuit, and where are the limits of free speech and personal privacy drawn? Ed Klaris, founding partner of Klaris Law and former general counsel of The New Yorker, weighs in. 

• After an injection of cash and a few weeks of national unity, how will Brazil move forward after the 2016 Summer Olympic Games pack up and leave Rio? We speak with two Brazilians — Lúcia Guimarães, columnist and correspondent for the daily newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, and Marcelo Cortes Neri, Brazil’s former Minister of Strategic of Affairs — about their visions for the future of their country.

• This week, Takeaway Culture Reporter Melissa Locker brings us up to speed on the shows to watch and skip for the start of the fall television season.

• Earlier this week, researchers at the University of Chicago learned more about the deep evolutionary link between human hands and fish fins. Andrew Gehrke, a co-author of the study and a biologist currently working at Harvard University, has the details. 

• On Thursday, the Justice Department announced it would end the use of private prisons after determining they are less safe and effective than federally run prisons. Michele Deitch, a senior lecturer with the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs and School of Law at the University of Texas-Austin, reflects on the DOJ’s decision. 

• It’s been a devastating week for residents in and around Baton Rouge, Louisiana as flooding continues to bash the city. With help from Dr. Michael White, a jazz clarinetist and professor of African-American Music at Xavier University of Louisiana, we go to the heart of the state’s culture — its music — to find out how people are responding to this disaster.