{"id":39867,"date":"2025-10-20T12:33:59","date_gmt":"2025-10-20T16:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=39867"},"modified":"2025-11-12T15:58:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T20:58:22","slug":"finnish-president-alexander-stubb-on-golf-icebreakers-russia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/finnish-president-alexander-stubb-on-golf-icebreakers-russia\/","title":{"rendered":"Finnish President Alexander Stubb on golf, icebreakers, Russia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In recent coverage from the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msn.com\/en-us\/news\/world\/icebreakers-and-golf-spark-trump-and-finnish-leaders-unlikely-friendship\/ar-AA1OfVj4?ocid=BingNewsSerp\">BBC<\/a>, the news organization comments on ongoing talks between U.S. President Donald Trump and &#8220;unlikely spokesman for Europe,&#8221; Finnish President Alexander Stubb. Stubb, a 1993 Furman University political science alumnus, is dubbed by many media outlets as a &#8220;Trump Whisperer&#8221; and confidant. Their relationship began in March this year at a Mar-a-Lago golf tournament. Stubb, who originally came to Furman on a golf scholarship, and Trump routinely discuss the war in Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, European sentiment, and lately, a deal to buy 11 Finnish icebreaker ships, four of them to be built in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Furman&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/people\/brent-nelsen\/\">Brent Nelsen<\/a>, the Jane Fishburne Hipp Professor of Politics and International Affairs and friend of Stubb, talks about the importance of the leaders&#8217; first meeting on the golf course. &#8220;Trump is always impressed with superior talent,&#8221; Nelsen tells the BBC. &#8220;Somebody who has some gift that really makes him stand out.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The BBC reports that Furman alum and Finnish President Alex Stubb &#8217;93 has forged an &#8220;unlikely&#8221; bond with another world leader. Brent Nelsen comments on how the game of golf plays into the dynamic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":257,"featured_media":17043,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,24,3499,6,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-athletics","category-bbc","category-in-the-news","category-politics-and-international-affairs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/257"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39867"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40260,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39867\/revisions\/40260"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}