YouSaid · the spoken record

Alexander Stubb

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42
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2026-03-09
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2026-03-09
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  1. “I actually think that empires, some empires in this world have been able to transition to become middle powers. And then the United Kingdom is the greatest example thereof with your colonial past, with your Commonwealth past, to be able to find the position that you have in the world right now, I think is extraordinary. There are other countries that have not been able to deal with their past. And I think Russia is a good example thereof. They have not been able to cope with the past of the Soviet Union or Stalinism. Germany has been able to cope with their past. So in that sense, I would give kudos to the United Kingdom and continue to do what you do. And please come back to the European Union at one stage. And if I may finish off with this to the British audience to say that I hope we're seeing a sequence whereby it took you seven years to negotiate yourselves out of the European Union. It'll take you seven years to regret it and then seven years to negotiate yourself back in there. We need you.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “So, the starting point is that the world is essentially competitive, whether it's about geopolitics, geoeconomics, technology, whatnot. But that competition without rules can easily spill over into conflict. And we're seeing now an increase in conflicts, both local and regional. And we're trying to prevent a global one. And what is the solution for this world of competition, conflict? It is cooperation. And that's where we need to find the common rules in the international institutions. And I think that's what we need to work at. We just need to revamp them and reform them and get the world back on track.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yes, but if we go to a microcosm or a smaller example, which is the European Union, what happened after World War II? Three big states and three small states decided to pool sovereignty and create the European coal and steel community and then the European economic community after that, which now has 27, soon 30, perhaps 35 members. And they're pooling sovereignty on issues that are very close to national control, like trade or competition and have a currency, et cetera, et cetera. So, you know, let's not throw the baby out with the bath forward or think the UN is still there.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “That is true, but then you might as well be speaking of a Hobson dog eats dog type of a world where, you know, the big do what they want and we small, you know, kind of what we can. And I think the whole idea of global governance is that you end up pooling sovereignty in issues where you really need to cooperate, trying to solve conflicts is one example. I mean, that is the core of the business of the United Nations. Fighting climate change is another example. And you try to find compromises when you're dealing with this global governance. But of course, I fully understand that when you have nuclear powers like Russia, like China, like the United States, if they want to go the full mile, they can go the full mile.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “So, okay, the proposal in the book, you know, it's one which I made in my UN speech in September as well and the previous September, is to double, so to say that the... It symbolizes the world which existed post World War II and in the early 70s. And get rid of a veto. And get rid of the veto. And if you double the membership, you should take one from Latin America, two from Africa, and two from Asia. And then Europe should rethink France, the UK, Germany, EU, how we do that. I'm a little bit agnostic to how Europe organizes it, but I would assume that the rest of the world is looking and saying, why does Europe with Russia have four seats in the UN Security Council? So, you know, it's a complicated mix. How do we get there? We get there by starting the conversation. Then you have different ways of doing it. Can we be in a situation where the General Assembly votes in a different way with the UN Security Council, who rules over whom? So we just have to look at this more openly. And my argument is that the Global South needs to have agency because that reflects the world that we live in.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Money. That's money, right? And here I think there is a little bit of some member states have EU envy about defense industries, et cetera. I will not name France. So there's a little bit of that, and it's understandable. But I think for me, as coming from one of the largest militaries with a very vibrant defense industry, I would like to see the UK closer. And let's work on this within the NATO framework.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “I want to sum up the solution. Yeah, I'm big on political speeches. But I mean, you know, I look at the silver lining. So after 2016, of course, when the UK unfortunately left the European Union or actually only in 2023, we have been trying to work out, okay, how can we bring UK closer to Europe? And I think COVID, I think Russia's attack on Ukraine, I think energy, now the transatlantic partnership, I don't even make a distinction anymore between meeting the UK Prime Minister or the French president. For me, they are the same. They're part of the big security umbrella. Then, you know, sometimes we get things right. Mercosur will go through, but there has been strong rejection to it, which I fundamentally disagree with. And then on the defense thing, I mean, we have to understand that European defense without UK presence is much weaker.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Well, yes and no. I mean, first of all, we have to understand that the European Union or Europe is not a utopia. It's not a single entity. And I always sort of joke around and say that Europe advances in three stages. First, there is a crisis, then there's chaos, and finally there's a suboptimal solution. And that's pretty much, you know, what we're all about.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Was very much a part of my return to politics because, as you might know, I was always an advocate of Finnish NATO membership when it wasn't popular, took quite a few hits on it, 20% of the population was in favor of NATO, 50% and 30 undecided. So when we had this conversations at home with my wife, who is now dual national born in the UK and now British and Finnish, and we sort of had this conversation that should we do it again she was kind of the one pushing and saying, listen, we're now in NATO. This is really good for the alliance. Why don't you go ahead?”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “Now, of course, the Arctic has been up there because of Greenland. And we want to stress that Greenland is very important. But when it comes to Arctic security, it happens somewhere else. And that is basically in the north of Finland, Sweden, and Norway, because, of course, Russia has strong nuclear presence up there in that region. There are a couple of things that I've been a bit dismayed about when someone says that we don't project power in the Arctic. I say, okay, Finland has obligatory military service. So we have trained one million men and women to fight in Arctic conditions. We have 62 F-18s. We just bought 64 F-35s. We have long-range missiles, air, land, and sea. We have the largest artillery in Europe together with Poland. And our whole defense composure is based on an Arctic defense. So if someone wants to come and learn,”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Okay, so in 2009, when I was foreign minister, we actually did the first Finnish Arctic strategy. And the take is very similar actually to the discussion that you had in the podcast, that it's really about three things, security, economy, and climate. And they're all sort of intermixed in many different ways. Now there's a strong focus on that. Now, there used to be something called the Arctic Council. It still exists, but that one had eight countries in it, including Russia. And of course, now the Arctic Council is not working. So we're talking more about the Arctic 7, which would then include the five Nordics, the US and Canada. For us as an Arctic country, we're happy that the focus is on the Arctic because we have Arctic know-how. We live in Arctic conditions. And actually, if you look at life in the Arctic circle, the most sort of focused part of it is Finland, Sweden, and Norway.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Course, we have the United States, which is still a very strong superpower. We'll continue to be so. I never want to compare these three, and especially when it comes to sovereignty and territorial integrity. But there have been claims on Greenland, which breaks the old order. There might be claims on Taiwan, which will break the order. And of course, there have been claims on Ukraine. So we are kind of in a transition period right now. And the question is how we get it back.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “I think I've stole it from the Luxembourgers. So, the bottom line there is that it's a very strategic power, and it, of course, looks at a century of history just as a page in the history of a book. And it is trying to become the superpower of the world and is the second superpower of the world right now. And it does it through different types of programs like the Belt and Road Initiative or Great China 2025, whatever there is. And they're actually quite good at reaching their targets. Their approach is much more patient, for instance, in comparison to Russia, which is an expansive imperialist power, a declining power.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yeah, I think China is a very patient and a very strategic power. I've had the opportunity to have long conversations with President Xi Xi Ping three times.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So, international institutions, rules, and norms and cooperation. And yes, the big ones will always do what they want. And we small ones do what we can. But what we can do is to try to convince the middle powers, here's where Carney comes in, to support multilateralism. When I was at the G20, not because Finland isn't in the G20 with G30, but I was there in Johannesburg, you know, I detected that 18 out of the 20 Gs all supported multilateralism. Why? Because they feel that if that's not the case, the big ones will rule.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “No, I think Mark Carney and I, we of course speak a lot and we talk about the changing world order. The difference that Mark and I have is that he talks about a rupture or destruction of the old order. And I talk about transition because I don't think we should throw the baby out with the bathwater. I sometimes wonder, should I have called it the rectangle of power? Because if the US wants to take the Western Hemisphere, let's call it the Global West, and then call the traditional global West Europe, Japan, Korea, we call it the global north. you know, triangle of power is what it is. I think there are two pillars that are in this sort of fight, which are linked to your question. One is the multipolar one with Xi Xi Ping, probably with President Trump, with Putin. They talk in terms of transactions and deals and spheres of interest. So it's a little bit of concert of powers of the 19th century. And then another group which talks the language of multilateralism.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “110th thing more. And of course, it wasn't because he believes in Roskimir, Great Russia, which is one Russia, one language, one religion, and one leader himself. But the difference from 2014 and 2022 is the scale of the invasion. Because I think in 2014, he only went for Crimea and then Donetsk and Luhansk. Now in 2022, he tried to go for Kyiv and thought that he'd do it in 72 days. And here we are four years later. It has been a strategic and military disaster for Putin.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “Well, I was intimately involved in mediating peace in Georgia because I was foreign minister and chairman of the OSCE Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. And we were able to get a ceasefire in five days. And then, of course, President Sarkozy was involved. After that, I gave a speech, which was called Zero 80808, because the war started on the 8th of August 2008. And I made a claim that this could be the end of the old order because Russia is showing its imperial DNA again. It's using aggression. Got quite a lot of pushback saying, hey, young man, don't push it. This is going too far. 2014, I think there's an argument there that we should have woken up, smelt the coffee, but we didn't. We still felt that the end of history is upon us if we just continue to cooperate with Russia. They're going to fall into place and become a normal state.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Oh, yeah, certainly that because you have a member of the permanent member of the UN Security Council violating everything that the UN stands for and basically trying to destroy the independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of a neighboring country. Now, I'm not saying that American foreign policy in Iraq has been spotless or that the international order has always been pitch perfect. But this is one of the largest violations that we've seen.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “I think the jury is out. And if you look at the national security strategy, which I'm happy to talk about, it obviously rejects that order. And if we just listen to Marco Rubio's speech, he says the order is still there, but we're going to transform, which is, I think, good news. Then you have the global east, which is led by China, followed by Russia, which is more into multipolarity. So it doesn't necessarily want to pool the sovereignty that we've done during the 80 years of the liberal world order. And essentially, the global south, which I know is unfair to lump 125 countries, many of the middle powers into one, they will be the ones who decide the direction of the order. And my argument then is for the Global West, if you want to maintain the remnants of the order, you need to reach out to the global south. You need to use values-based realism and dignified foreign policy. And I think that's what China is doing quite well right now.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, so the framework of the triangle is to say that the Global West, formerly led by the United States, supported the old liberal international order. So basically multilateralism, the UN, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “All changed was the 24th of February 2022 when Russia attacked Ukraine. And then, of course, this has all been accelerated by the new US administration and the rebalancing of a new order will take, I'd say, another five years before we're there.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “So the name of the book is The Triangle of Power, Rebalancing the New World Order. And the starting point is to say what everyone is now saying that the world order is changing. And I think this is the 1918, 1945 or 1989 moment of our generation. And we can get it wrong, as they did after World War I, the League of Nations wasn't strong enough. And after two decades, World War II broke out. We can get it more or less right as our leaders did in 1945 with the creation of the United Nations and four decades of virtual peace during the Cold War, tight situations, but nevertheless, so institutional control. Or then we can be intellectually lazy as we were after the Cold War when we made an assumption that history ended and it would all be about greenfields and rainbows and peace signs and liberal democracy and social market economy and globalization. And my argument is that the moment that it”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “Yeah, the only and main reason. So basically, I left day-to-day politics. I'd been in it for about 12 years, eight of those years in government in 2016, 2017. My off-ramp was the European Investment Bank, which was super interesting. I felt that, oh, why didn't I do this before I was finance minister? Because suddenly I felt that, oh, I understand a little bit about the financial markets, which I guess a bit superficial, but nevertheless. And then I had a chance to go into academia and I thought I'd be in there. And that's when I wrote the book and felt that there's a good time to read and analyze and build a new school or a new institution. And I would not be here was it not for Putin's and Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “It's a difference between a good job and a bad job. Being a prime minister is probably the worst job that you can have in the country. The pressure is constant. It doesn't hold up. In Finland, it's even more complicated because you're always in coalition governments. So you get basically pressure from your own party. You get pressure from your own government ministers. You get pressure from the other parties. And then you get pressure from the opposition and you get pressure from the media. So you really have to be cool, calm, and collected. And I admire a lot of the people that do it, including our current prime minister. I have a lot of admiration for Kier Starmer, for Friedrich Mertz, actually also for Emmanuel Macron and many others. See, my job is essentially half of the job of a prime minister because I only deal with foreign policy. And in that sense, as I said, all Finns want the president to succeed because you don't want to fail in foreign policy. And it's a different predicament.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “Yeah, I felt, you know, like I remember when I lost the election, my wife and I, we went for a run and opened a bottle of champagne and started immediately thinking about our future. I mean, I was really glad that I had served, but eight years in government was too much. I was asked to continue, but I said now.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Not yet, but I mean, the years from 2014 to 2016 were the most difficult years in my life because I wasn't in my comfort zone. I was never into national politics. And I probably didn't cope with it as well as I should have. Having said that, we finished second in the elections. I became finance minister. But then I was challenged from the party inside, actually from the guy who is now the prime minister, my good friend. And a lot of people said, you know, why is he challenging back and why is he not unhappy that he lost the leadership? Well, for me, it was kind of liberation day.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “You do Yeah, he does, and he's of course quite good at it. The difference there is that I think Trump's DNA is to be number one in the news cycle 24-7. I've tried to suggest to my team on occasion, can't we have these sort of extempore to our press conferences from my office? But for some reason been rejected, they don't trust my communications. Oh, I see clear. I think you call it communication.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “Yeah, I mean, I guess, but I think you guys with Tony Blair in 1997, and I remember I was living in London on the 1st of May then, you know, you guys took a completely new angle. And for me, it felt that this was one of the last opportunities to go for a radical change in a system and then communicate it. And because you worked with communication, you know exactly what I mean. Now it's uncontrollable. I'm sitting here with my spokeswoman. And we make no amends. We can't control the media.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “Well, no, because I do think that we have corrective measures in the system that still work. But I think democracy hasn't upgraded itself to the technological age. I mean, democracy was crafted by John Locke and Hobbs and Montesquieu and Rousseau at a time when there were no technological devices. You could take three months to answer something. Democracy was supposed to be muddling through and compromised and all of these things. And then now everything is so quick, an instant if you don't react to something on X or something within seconds, you get scolded. And now the pressure comes from so many different sources before it just came from your regular media. Now it comes from social media. It comes from podcasts like these. So yeah, it's difficult.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “He certainly is, and I think I'm a good psychotherapist for him. We're very good friends, so I keep on giving him encouragement. And every subsequent prime minister, after my own experience, I've always, you know, wanted them to succeed because it's kind of mission impossible.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “So why did you find it so hard? This is the thing I always say is that when you're a prime minister of a country, Whereas when you're president, because my sort of powers are about foreign policy and commander-in-chief, everyone wants you to succeed. So the starting point is different.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

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    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

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    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

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    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “Stuff and was supposed to stay in Brussels until. So then you get into government. Yeah, and that was almost by mistake in the sense that my predecessor's foreign minister was involved in a scandal and had to resign. And I was asked to move over to Helsinki. Our kids had been born in Belgium. My wife was working in a law firm in Belgium. So I asked my then party chairman that how much time do we have to decide? Is it 24 hours? So we hummed and harmed overnight, actually in Lapland. We were there skiing or something and then decided, okay, let's do it. And that was in 2008, became foreign minister. That was very much my dream job. I get the feeling that when you became prime minister, that was less of a dream job. Oh, God. Yes. So my first six years in government was foreign minister and then a combination of trade and Europe. And then I kind of became prime minister by accident. I was supposed to become commissioner, my predecessor.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “Finish system that you might get a couple of courses at Helsinki University. Screw this and decide okay, I'll do an MA and then a PhD and didn't look back. So that was kind of my first career. But then in the academic world, I somehow felt that, okay, the theoretical stuff is super interesting in conceptualizing things, but I wanted to do practical things. So I was involved in the Finnish negotiating team for the Amsterdam Treaty and then for the Nice Treaty. And then later on for the Constitutional Convention, Lisbon Treaty. So I took very much a civil servant path. I was never a real diplomat, but I always had contracts with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. And then only really when I was 36 in 2004, I got my first political thoughts. And it was very much a Europeanist. And you became an MEP. Became an MEP out of the blue because, I mean, you know, we had its personal votes. And I ended up getting second most votes in the nation because I'd been very much the EU expert commentating.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Because the sports stuff didn't pan out. The first one was academic. I really, I just sat in the library, I went to lectures, I wrote, and I just immersed myself in things international, international relations. 89, you know, Finland was nowhere near the European Union membership yet. We only decided on that after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. So I felt that I want to do academia, European integration theory. And I pretty early on decided I want to do a PhD. And the reason was kind of strange. I had studied really hard for four years in the US, Verman University in Grainwall Sky. I loved the place. And I was proud of what I have Dean's list and straight A's and the rest of it, Phi Beta Kappa. And then I called the educational authorities in Finland and said, you know, hi, this is Alex. I have this BA. I said, well, it really doesn't mean much here.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “No, I wasn't. And the idea was that I tried my bearings in golf. And then eventually I ended up studying in the US, started there at the end of the Cold War in 1989. And the idea was to study economics and then basically become a golf professional. But I very quickly noticed that economics is not my thing. And I played in a tournament with Phil Michelson and noticed that I don't have his hands, not even from the right side. Then got myself immersed in studies and didn't. So hold on, if you get into play with Phil Michelson, I mean, are you like a scratch golfer? Well, I used to be when I was. I used to be a kid, yeah, yeah. But now I'm a little bit back in golf again, four rather obvious reasons. I didn't play pretty much for 35 years, but these modern clubs, they hit by themselves. Yeah, yeah. And so when did the kind of political impulses start and where did they come from? Quite late. I mean, I kind of say that I've had three careers.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  40. “In Europe. So, all the European players that play in the NHL, in the US and in Canada kind of go through him. So we were very much a sports family, if you will. And I didn't get my academic awakening until I started studying in the US. And I did my military service like all Finnish men at the time. But very much a regular Finnish type of background when I was a kid, quite international still. And your first visit to America then was when you were in your early teens. Yeah, I was actually 13. Our ice hockey team sold matchboxes from door to door to scramble some money. And we flew to New York and went to St. Louis to play a little bit of ice hockey. And the subsequent summer, I spent both in Missouri and in Canada. So basically picking up the language. And then I did an exchange during a really tough place called Daytona Beach, Florida. Was it tough? No. No.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  41. “Listening, it's great to have you here. Thank you so much for giving us your time. Let's just start with your childhood, growing up in Finland, what your parents did, what your life was like, and whether you ever imagined that you'd have the life that you've had. Short answer is no, but life was good when I was young. So I grew up very much in a bilingual family. So I spoke Finnish with my mother and Swedish from my dad and Finnish for my younger brother. The two languages have nothing in common. I started in a Finnish school and switched over in fourth grade to Swedish school because my left wing in my ice hockey team was in the Swedish speaking school. So of course I had to make the academic decision. I wasn't an academic kid. I dreamt about becoming a professional ice hockey player and later on. And your dad was big in ice hockey. Yeah, he basically managed a team and he was the head of the Finnish ice hockey federation. And then in 1983, he became the head of the National Hockey League Central School.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  42. “Thanks for listening to the rest is politics. Sign up to the Rest is Politics Plus to enjoy ad free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room again, early access to live show tickets. Just go to the restispolitics.com. That's the restispolitics.com.”

    2026-03-09 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 179. President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source