Donald Trump struggled to find his new best friend from Finland at Monday’s Ukraine peace talks, even though President Alexander Stubb was seated right opposite him and the pair are officially golfing buddies.
Trump, 79, was the oldest person ever to be sworn into office when he began his second term in January.
Lately he has suffered a series of “senior moments,” repeatedly saying he was going to Russia when in fact he was headed to Alaska, forgetting the name of a “big” war he supposedly ended, writing incomprehensible social media posts, and losing track of people standing right behind him.
ADVERTISEMENT
On Monday, seven European leaders joined Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House for a high-stakes gathering to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion. While Trump was introducing the participants, who were seated around a conference table, he seemed to get lost.
“President Stubb of Finland. He’s uh, somebody that, where are we here?” Trump said.
He then looked all around the table until Stubb, who was sitting next to Zelensky and directly across from Trump, said, “I’m right here.”
“Oh!” Trump said, leaning forward. “You look better than I’ve ever seen you look. But you’ve done a great job and we wanted to have you here.”
The president’s flailing was reminiscent of a White House press conference earlier this month with Apple CEO Tim Cook in which Trump forgot that his Cabinet members were standing right behind him.
“Thanks as well to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick for being here, wherever you may be,” he said.
“I’m right behind you,” Lutnick said, catching Trump off-guard.
“Oh hey fellas, I missed you,” the president quipped.
Something similar happened when Trump was signing a veterans’ bill on July 31 and didn’t realize the legislation’s sponsors were standing right behind him.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Trump’s exchange with Stubb was all the more striking because the president and his Finnish counterpart have bonded on the golf course.
“I just played a round of Golf with Alexander Stubb, president of Finland. He is a very good player,” the MAGA chief wrote on social media in March.
The center-right conservative attended Furman University in South Carolina on a golf scholarship and was a member of the Finnish national golf team. He had planned to go pro after graduation but decided to quit after a year to focus on his political science degree.
Trump said the two leaders won the Men’s Member-Guest Golf Tournament at Trump International West Palm Beach, according to the Palm Beach Post.
Stubb apparently made an impression on Trump, because since their golf victory the U.S. president has called him late at night to chat about Russia, which shares a land border with Finland, along with chipping, driving, and putting.
