CLEVELAND, Ohio – Now, Wayne Dawson can talk about it without his voice cracking.
Now, when he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t feel like crying.
Comments Cruz Made During Meetings With Donors Released
Now, when he talks about “trusting God,” his voice is strong, the doubt is gone.
Now, Dawson can talk about his doctor telling him, “I never thought you’d make it back (on TV).”
As Dawson tells that story, he laughs, and says, “I’m glad he didn’t tell me that before I got back on the air.”
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That’s because Wayne Dawson returned to the Fox 8 morning show on Jan. 5. He had been gone for 14 months, battling oral and jaw cancer.
“I always thought I’d be back,” said Dawson. “It was my goal. It is what drove me. It was like a mission. I wanted people to see that God is a healer.”
The man in the mirror
Dawson would look at his face in the mirror and try not to cry.
His jaw wasn’t just swollen, it was huge! Most of his teeth were gone. His face looked lopsided.
He felt lost.
He was scared.
His life was one big question mark.
For nearly two years, Dawson battled oral cancer. It started on his cheek and later spread to his jaw. There were two major cancer surgeries. One of them lasted 12 hours, during which doctors took a piece of his fibula bone in his leg and put it into his jaw.
“I was deformed,” Dawson said. “My lips were swollen. I hated it. I hated even looking at myself in the mirror.”
Dawson would wonder, “Will I be able to keep my job?”
TV news anchor & pastor
He has worked at Fox 8 for 46 years. He is one of their morning anchors. This is television. Looks matter.
Dawson also is the pastor of Grace Tabernacle Baptist Church in Lyndhurst.
“I was able to preach most of the time,” he said. “I would wear a mask. But on TV, you can’t do that.”
Dawson replaced Jeremiah Pryce as pastor at Grace Tabernacle after Pryce passed away.
“You know how he died?” asked Dawson. “He had oral cancer.”
Wrestling with God
There were nights when Dawson felt anxious, staring at the ceiling, wondering …
“I even wondered how I sound,” he said. “After the surgeries, my voice didn’t sound quite right to me.”
Only about 3% of cancers are oral. Most of those come from drinking and/or tobacco use. Dawson did neither.
Dawson said he was like Jacob, the Biblical character who wrestled with God in Genesis Chapter 32
“Why did this have to be in my mouth?” he said. “Why my face?”
Why? WHY? WHY???
Then Dawson would have quiet moments where he sensed God whispering, “Trust me.”
He wanted to do that … to trust God.
But the mirror revealed something else.
He seemed to be shrinking. With the operations and losing his teeth, he had trouble eating. After a while, he didn’t even want to eat.
“I used to weigh 165 pounds,” he said. “I got down to 130. I’d see myself in the mirror looking so skinny and wondered, ‘Who is that guy looking back at me?’ ”
Dawson is up to 150 pounds now.
The heart of the man
“I look at being on TV as part of my ministry,” Dawson said. “That’s why I talked about going through cancer. I really wanted to show God was a healer.”
At one point, Dawson thought he was cancer-free. He was planning to come back on the air. But it came back.
There were more treatments. There were 34 rounds of radiation. There were three chemotherapy treatments that sent him into the hospital last February for 10 days.
“I was on the verge of death,” he said.
Meanwhile, he was being fueled by prayers and cards not only from friends, but also from people who watched him on TV. His desk at Fox 8 is still filled with boxes of cards.
“People would see me and say, ‘I’m praying for you,’ ” said Dawson. “There were times when I thought about quitting. I’m 70 years old. I could just be a pastor. But then I thought of those people. I wanted them to see what God could do right on TV.”
Dawson talked about Fox 8 station manager Paul Perozeni and news director Andy Fishman, who “never wavered” in their belief he could come back. So Dawson pushed on. He recovered from various operations.
The last big one was plastic surgery to put his face back together. There was risk involved. Some of the people close to him told him to skip it. He didn’t need to be on TV. Life is good.
All of that is true.
Dawson talked about the strength of his wife LaVerne and his three daughters. They truly endured some Biblical-type trials and tribulations as a family, but Dawson sensed God was somehow guiding it.
At one point, he prayed for healing like King Hezekiah in Isaiah Chapter 38.
“I asked for 15 more years like Hezekiah got from God,” said Dawson. “But I’ll take whatever God has given me. At the station, everyone has made me feel so loved. It’s been a beautiful reunion.”
Hear me talk:
Wednesday, Jan. 28: I will be doing a faith-based talk with Regina Brett at the Music Box in the Flats. Doors open at 5:30, the show is at 7 p.m. It is a benefit for Akron’s Haven of Rest. Here’s where to get more information: https://musicboxcle.com/event/inspiring-stories-jan28
Thursday, Jan. 29: I will be speaking and signing books at the new Barnes & Noble Strongsville store. The talk begins at 6:30 p.m.
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https://www.ft.com/content/0d562865-c5c0-4e28-852c-ba49494e1d3f
Transcript: Greenland — the good, the bad or the ugly? Gideon Rachman talks to Finland’s President Alexander Stubb Transcript: Greenland — the good, the bad or the ugly? on x (opens in a new window) Transcript: Greenland — the good, the bad or the ugly? on facebook (opens in a new window) Transcript: Greenland — the good, the bad or the ugly? on linkedin (opens in a new window) Save Gideon Rachman PublishedJAN 21 2026 Print this page This is an audio transcript of the Rachman Review podcast episode: ‘Greenland — the good, the bad or the ugly?’ Gideon Rachman Hello and welcome to The Rachman Review. I’m Gideon Rachman, chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times. This week’s podcast is an interview with President Alexander Stubb of Finland. We spoke on Monday evening in Davos at the opening of the World Economic Forum. Our discussion took place at a time of enormous tension between the United States and its European allies following Donald Trump’s repeated insistence that the US must take possession of Greenland. So can transatlantic relations be saved? [MUSIC PLAYING] There are a lot of world leaders here in Davos. President Trump himself is due to speak on Wednesday. But he’s already caused shock and dismay among European delegates with his comments on Greenland. Donald Trump voice clip We have to have it. They have to have this done. They can’t protect it. Denmark, they’re wonderful people, and I know the leaders are very good people, but they don’t even go there. Gideon Rachman Meanwhile, Russia’s offensive against Ukraine continues. News clip President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says several hundred thousand people in and around Kyiv are without power today after another Russian missile strike. Parts of the capital have been without heating and electricity, in fact for several days now, and in sub-zero temperatures. Gideon Rachman President Stubb of Finland is one of the few world leaders who has a close relationship with both Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He famously played a round of golf with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and he’s in regular touch with the US president. So I was eager to hear what he makes of the current situation. I interviewed him on stage at a hotel in Davos at a meeting organised by the Finnish Chamber of Commerce. I started by asking President Stubb about the crisis over Greenland. How does he see it playing out? Alexander Stubb Well, I think there’s three scenarios on Greenland. It’s the good and the bad and the ugly. So the good basically means that we find an off-ramp, we find a process, and at the end of that process, we will have strengthened Nato’s presence in Arctic security and perhaps the time to announce that would be the Nato summit in Ankara. The bad one is that the situation escalates. We get into some kind of a tariff war with the United States and trade war, and we go from bad to worse. And of course, the ugly scenario is basically military, which I personally don’t believe will take place. Now, my take is that there are two kind of camps in Europe right now. One is a group to which I include myself that wants to de-escalate, that believes that dialogue and diplomacy should still work on this. And then another one which says, well, we need to be tough, so we need to take measures on tariffs and other things, and probably we’re gonna end up somewhere in between because, needless to say, as a Nordic, as a Finn, I think what the United States has proposed flies against basic international law, territorial integrity and sovereignty. And among allies, you should be able to discuss things diplomatically rather than coming on with full force. Gideon Rachman And Finland was one of the countries that Trump singled out for these new tariffs because you had sent troops to Greenland. Do you regret doing that now? Alexander Stubb Well, no, because I think there’s a little bit of a misunderstanding. Basically, what the soldiers from the eight countries were doing there was a mission, a reconnaissance mission that had been agreed with our allies, by the United States as well. And the idea was basically to suss out what kind of a training mission should we have together. And that training mission is called Arctic Endurance, and it has eight different parts and the United States is a part of that as well. So unfortunately, this was a little bit of a broken telephone. Gideon Rachman So you think President Trump misinterpreted what was going on? Alexander Stubb I think there have been a lot of misunderstandings in this process, and hopefully we can sort them out during the Davos week. Gideon Rachman OK, so you mentioned these three scenarios: the escalation, de-escalation, and the worst one, warfare. You say you are on the side of de-escalation. Can you flesh out for us what that would look like? How do we get off this very kind of dangerous situation we’re in now? Alexander Stubb Well, you kind of need to do two things. The first one is to have an open dialogue, and of course, this weekend you can imagine has been phone diplomacy on steroids. So we’ve been talking with everyone among the allies and European leaders. As you mentioned, we’ve been messaging with President Trump directly as well, and that is basically to find a process on what to deal with. And while we do that, I think it’s very important that the European Union and the European Council, which meets on Thursday night, will have a look at different types of measures which will increase incentives to de-escalate for the US. And I’m still optimistic that we can find our way out of this impasse. Diplomacy is never easy, but it’s always better to talk than not to talk. Gideon Rachman And can you give us a sense of what kind of proposal might work for both sides? Because it sounds like the problem is Trump is very unequivocal. He wants to own Greenland. Alexander Stubb Yeah. It depends on which side of the scale you go on this. You know, you have one camp which says that this is a security issue. I want to believe and want to be in that camp. How do we increase Arctic security through Nato and Nato presence and US troops, which for all intents and purposes can already be there? The 1951 agreement that Denmark, Greenland and the United States has basically gives a free hand for the US to have its military there. And then the other camp is the sovereignty camp. And I think we need to try to find an off-ramp and package this into a good one. It’s not an easy case, I have to admit. It’s probably the most difficult case that I’ve had since I started in office two years ago. Gideon Rachman And you said that at the European Council, they’ll be discussing how Europe might react, and you seem to suggest it’s inevitable that, of course, he will have to discuss tariffs. But there are those I think in America who think, you know, Europe doesn’t have much it can do, that America has escalation dominance. Alexander Stubb I would quite fundamentally disagree with that. Remember that the modern instruments of what could be called warfare or escalation, many of them are actually the exclusive competence of the European Commission and the European Union. Customs, so basically tariffs, trade. Also actually monetary. So there are a lot of decisions that can be done together, which could then be an incentive to de-escalate. So in this particular case, I would argue that Europe has a lot of the cards. Gideon Rachman And do you need to use the kind of language of escalation? Do you need to perhaps escalate to de-escalate, you need to show a threat? Alexander Stubb Well, I prefer to do that actually behind the scenes. And I think one of the problems is that modern diplomacy is quite often conducted, especially in today’s world, through the international media and statements. And sometimes it’s, you know, good to keep your hand off the phone. At least texting and instead do it face-to-face or have a conversation. And that’s what I try to do a lot with the prime minister of Norway, Jonas Gahr Støre. We feel that we’re very much in the back office. One of my big worries for the Davos week is that Greenland will dominate and take all the oxygen out of the dialogue here. It’s a super important question. I don’t deny that. But don’t forget that we have an ongoing war in Ukraine and we should not lose momentum on that either. So there are many different balls in the air in international relations right now and especially during this week. Gideon Rachman Yeah, and you are absolutely right, and I will come to Ukraine in a minute because as you say, one of the dangers of this whole Greenland obsession is that it distracts attention from a very serious issue there. But just a couple more Greenland questions before we go to Ukraine. You said that you are on the de-escalation side. I think we can see France, for example, is talking tough. If Trump isn’t persuaded to go for a package deal now and the US goes ahead with these tariffs, do you think it’s inevitable that Europe would then respond with tariffs? Alexander Stubb I don’t wanna speculate about the future, but of course over the weekend I’ve been, you know, speaking and messaging with secretary-general of Nato, president of the European Commission, with the president of France, with the chancellor of Germany, the prime minister of the UK. And I think the sentiment is very much that we need to prepare for the worst scenario. But I think there’s one element that I still wanna bring into this without meddling into US domestic politics, and that is that I think the Senate has a big say in this, and I think it’s important when we work diplomatically towards de-escalating, that we also communicate with the Senate. So, you know, I’m carefully optimistic that we’ll find a solution and common sense will win at the end of the day. Gideon Rachman And final question on the last scenario, which you think is very unlikely, military intervention, in the last resort, Europe would have to defend its territory, wouldn’t it? Alexander Stubb I don’t want to go there, to be honest. It’s a question too big to answer, especially on the basis of speculation. And I think all that I hear from the US administration is that we’re not gonna go to that point. Gideon Rachman OK. Well, there is a place where, as you pointed out, there is a major war raging, which is Ukraine. And the news from there this week is pretty disturbing. I mean, people in Kyiv sitting in sub-zero temperatures without power. First of all, do you think in a sense the west is doing Putin’s work by fighting among themselves? Alexander Stubb I still feel that we are actually in a much better place, as far as Ukraine is concerned, than we were just a year ago. And I don’t wanna rewind the whole process, but I would say that there’s been a sequence of cities that have played a role. Geneva, right after the G20 meeting, where the national security advisers met, then Berlin, where I was on the leaders level and also Paris on the leaders level. And I feel that we are now on the same page, especially with the United States. And I would like to give credit, actually to Jared Kushner, who’s been very influential in putting things down on paper and finding practical solutions. And I think the takeaway from Paris on the 5th of December was that we now have security guarantees. We’re on the same page with the prosperity package, and we’re working on the 20-point plan. So I would say that it’s more three against one rather than two against two. And by that I mean to say that the three of us are on the same page, but we don’t know what Russia is gonna respond. Gideon Rachman The three being the US, the EU . . . Alexander Stubb And Ukraine. Or actually I would put it as the coalition of the willing, because I want to keep Canada, Norway and other important players in there. Gideon Rachman And yet it seemed on a couple of times in the past year that America had suddenly adopted a very pro-Russian position or a position that reflected Russian talking points, particularly on territorial handovers, including territory that Ukraine still occupies. Is that definitively off the table? Alexander Stubb Well, I think the United States sees itself very much as a mediator in this war, and that has then been reflected in some of the statements. And we all know that really at the end of the day, the deal will come based on security guarantees linked somehow to the territorial component. Right now, we’re working on what I call five plus two documents. So, five are the ones that have been basically negotiated between the Americans and the Ukrainians with some kind of Russian involvement, and then two from the European side. I feel that we are in a fairly good place with these documents, but I’m just worried that we’re losing a little bit of momentum. So that’s why I think it would be very useful if President Trump and President Zelenskyy met here in Davos this week to push the dossier a little bit further. Gideon Rachman You sure it’d be useful? Their meetings don’t always go so well. Alexander Stubb Well, they’ve been going quite well lately, so you know, again, I come back to the point that it’s better to talk than not to talk. And a lot of the meetings that I have either participated in with the president and with Zelenskyy, or with the European leaders and Zelenskyy, or with the European leaders and Trump, most of them have actually gone quite well. And at the end of the day, we found a solution even after Alaska. You know, that’s when we started focusing on security guarantees. And you know, who would’ve thought that the US is committed to monitoring a ceasefire and then giving a backstop to security guarantees? Who would’ve believed that only four or five months ago? Gideon Rachman But can we really believe those security guarantees at the same time that the US is threatening the territory of another Nato state? Alexander Stubb Well, there is obviously a tension and a paradox in that, but we have to work with what we have. Gideon Rachman What about the situation on the ground in Ukraine? I mean, I can see you think diplomatically things are a lot better than they could have been, but as I say, people are in sub-zero temperatures without power in Kyiv. Russia’s really trying to break Ukraine. Alexander Stubb Ukraine, in my mind, is unbreakable, and we’ve seen that during the four years. The resolve and what we would say in Finnish, the sisu, or perseverance of the Ukrainian people, is simply amazing. From a civilian perspective, it’s tragic. We can never spin it into something positive. But from a military perspective, keep in mind that in the past 1,000 days, Russia has advanced less than one percentage point of Ukrainian territory. Now, this is a war of attrition with a horrific cost, with over 1mn people either dead or wounded. It’s a high cost to pay for a war of attrition. Then, if I look at some more silver linings, the Russian economy is not doing well. Interest rates inflation in double digits. Zero growth for this year. No perspective of a better future on the economic side. This doesn’t mean that they won’t be able to continue to conduct the war. They will, but at the same time, they’ve also run out of reserves. And finally, one thing that we quite often forget, if you look at the strategic aims of Putin, he has failed in all of them. He hasn’t been able to ratify Ukraine — it’s actually gonna become a member of the European Union. He wasn’t able to contain Nato enlargement. He pushed Sweden and Finland into Nato, and while doing that, he increased Nato’s defence expenditure to 5 per cent. So, you know, things are not looking that good from the Russian perspective, as tragic as it is from a Ukrainian perspective as well. Gideon Rachman But in a war of attrition, doesn’t Russia, the larger country, in the end, have the advantage? Alexander Stubb Well, they have the advantage, but then it depends on for how long the war drags out. And here we have three scenarios. Scenario number one is that we continue the war of attrition this year. Right now, if you look at drones, if you look at air defence, Ukraine is doing better. And we continue to support and supply Ukraine with more ammunition and military equipment and finance, and we have guaranteed the finance of Ukraine for two years through the European Union. The second scenario is one where we get a peace agreement which, have to remind everyone, it’ll always be a compromise. I still think it will be, at the end of the day, a worthwhile compromise. And then of course, the third and worst scenario is that, you know, the US withdraws, but I don’t believe in that one, so let’s work for the second one. Gideon Rachman You are in an unusual position of being a good friend of both Trump and Zelenskyy. How do you find him? He’s under enormous pressure. He’s under pressure to have an election. He’s had to get rid of his chief of staff with a corruption scandal. How do you find him? Alexander Stubb He’s one of the most impressive human beings I have met throughout my life. And I’ve met quite a few, including a lot of world leaders. For someone to be able to sustain this type of pressure, which has come obviously from Russia militarily, politically, from inside his country, and then sometimes also from the United States, and still keep his marbles and be able to conduct the type of warfare that they’ve been doing, I admire him a lot. So that’s why I feel that I, as a Finn, in a country that has had a similar experience in the winter war and the War of Continuation, have an obligation to work with him as closely as I possibly can, and in so many different ways. It’s not only about, you know, financial or military support, it’s also about mental support and conversations and trying to find different ways out of difficult situations. So what I find that we need to do in the back office in Finland or in Norway is to help interpret Zelenskyy to Trump, Trump to Zelenskyy and both to our European friends. But I have a lot of admiration for what Zelenskyy has been doing over the years. Gideon Rachman And President Trump, I mean, everybody’s very intrigued by your relationship with him. You played golf with him, you text with him, you talk with him. From a distance, he seems like a very volatile, very unreasonable guy. But how do you speak to him? Alexander Stubb Well, first of all, I come from a small country, so if I’m able to forge a personal relationship with the president of the strongest country in the world, I see that as a bonus in diplomatic relations. At the same time, I under no circumstance want to inflate my relationship. I’m glad I’m able to talk, I’m glad I’m able to text. But this doesn’t mean that he listens, you know? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And I think just like with everyone, the person that you see behind the cameras is very different from the person that you see in front of the cameras. And you know, we in Finland are very pragmatic, so we try to deal with a world that exists, not a world that we would like to exist. Gideon Rachman What about, you talked to the Ukrainians, you talked to Trump. Should we be talking more to the Russians? Because some people say, look, we’ve left all the talking to, you know, the likes of Kushner and Witkoff. Europeans should be going to Moscow. Others say, no, that would be a terrible mistake. What do you think? Alexander Stubb Yeah, well, it’s hard to say. I mean, we’ve been talking about this for the past two years with our European colleagues. And I think President Macron has taken the lead in this. And our thinking is that if and when we begin a dialogue with Russia and with Putin, it should be co-ordinated. So this can’t be one of these solo affairs. So that conversation will have to start at some stage. And of course, I say this as someone who comes from a country with 1,340 kms of border with Russia, and that border is not going to go away. We’ll make sure that it won’t go away.
