© 2024 Aspen Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Before 'Trump And Putin,' There Was 'FDR And Stalin'

President Franklin D. Roosevelt, center, and Marshal Josef Stalin, right, at the Yalta Conference in Yalta, Crimea, on Feb. 16, 1945. (British Official Photo/AP)
President Franklin D. Roosevelt, center, and Marshal Josef Stalin, right, at the Yalta Conference in Yalta, Crimea, on Feb. 16, 1945. (British Official Photo/AP)

According to historians Ed Ayers (@edward_l_ayers) and Brian Balogh (@historyfellow), President-elect Donald Trump would not be the first U.S. president to have an unlikely friendship with a controversial world power like Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Ayers and Balogh are co-hosts of the public radio show and podcast BackStory, which is produced at the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. They speak with Here & Now‘s Peter O’Dowd about a few other presidents’ unlikely friendships, as well as presidential transitions, like the change of power from President Barack Obama to President-elect Trump.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.