President Stubb: Trump’s Unlikely Best Friend

Alastair Campbell· Host0:00

Thanks for listening to The Rarest is Politics. Sign up to The Rarest is Politics Plus to enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room, and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therarestispolitics.com. That's therarestispolitics.com. [upbeat music] Listen, it's great to have you here. Uh, thank you so much for giving us your time. Let's just start with your, 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.

Alexander Stubb· Guest0:35

[laughs] The 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 with my dad, and Finnish with my younger brother. The two languages have nothing in common. I started in a Finnish school and switched over in fourth grade to a 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, I dreamt about becoming a professional ice hockey player and later on a professional golf- And your dad was big in ice hockey. Yeah. He, 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 scouting 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, uh, if you will. And, you know, I, I didn't get my academic awakening until I started studying in the US, and I,