Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:53This morning's show, however, we start with a guest,
00:00:56who I think has been the media hero
00:01:01of recent weeks. Good morning, Kristo
00:01:04Envaga, good morning, good morning to your dear
00:01:07wife Tinne. Hello! Indeed all
00:01:11those who watched Estonian television, not this week's Wednesday, but last
00:01:14week's Wednesday's first studio, saw you participating in the big
00:01:18debate there, for the first time you were
00:01:20there representing your party, the Reform Party,
00:01:24you threw a fit and that show did not go at all
00:01:28as planned, meaning that as a result you did not go home
00:01:31from the TV house on your own feet, but you collapsed live
00:01:34on air. The only thing I actually
00:01:38remember from there is that I said good evening to the Estonian people
00:01:41and Kristo en Vaga, from the Reform Party. Good
00:01:44evening. And then I remember two, I think, such
00:01:48half-second episodes, where at one moment
00:01:51the host Kuusk moved towards me
00:01:55with a chair and then I remember the moment
00:01:58when Mi and Urmas, good
00:02:01colleagues,
00:02:03supported me and then I already remember that I was
00:02:07lying on a sofa outside the studio, with a quick drip
00:02:10around me and then I really understood what happened when I was
00:02:14in the ITK and I had a drip attached and I more or less
00:02:17then I was, then
00:02:20the whole picture
00:02:23came back, so more or less what just happened, at that
00:02:27moment I was unconscious for some time.
00:02:31I don't know, Stinne, you certainly watched that
00:02:34show, I did, maybe
00:02:37like this
00:02:40worry as such is actually an old
00:02:43thing, so it wasn't like I started worrying
00:02:47a lot in front of the TV on Wednesday evening, so
00:02:51then it was like, well, this
00:02:53overwork or working under great stress has
00:02:57always been an issue, so...
00:03:00especially when Kristo was in the Ministry of Defense during
00:03:03the time when Russia was planning and then also started its war against
00:03:07Ukraine, well, from there on, campaign manager
00:03:10positions, parliamentary positions, well,
00:03:14then we reach this summer where there were presidential elections
00:03:17at once, preparing for the autumn
00:03:21campaign, Siim's departure, well, ministerial
00:03:24changes, scandals, so it's not realistic for one person to bear
00:03:28all of that. "I want to do everything well and
00:03:31all these things that could be within my
00:03:35power or where I should be involved, I would really like to be involved there, I don't
00:03:39want to do things carelessly, I don't want to do
00:03:42things then
00:03:45uh like that, I
00:03:48want to contribute everything I do properly and that certainly takes
00:03:51a toll, it takes a toll on my health,
00:03:55it has clearly taken uh,
00:03:58although I thought that, well, completely as a former professional
00:04:02cyclist, uh, top athlete,
00:04:04well, I can handle everything,
00:04:08uh, but still, at some point things
00:04:11give up. How has this past week
00:04:15been for you, by the way?
00:04:18For me, it has been that hundreds
00:04:21of wonderful people have sent me many good
00:04:24messages and wishes, uh,
00:04:28but also boldly a couple dozen Estonian
00:04:32public figures from politics to entrepreneurs
00:04:35and everything else have told me their
00:04:39story, similar stories, where
00:04:43there has been something with the heart or some other
00:04:46diagnosis and that has on the other hand given me such peace of mind,
00:04:50that I am not alone in any way, that
00:04:53we are all human, but on the other hand, well, I have
00:04:57tried to spend more time with my family
00:05:00and take a break this past week. Well, I would say
00:05:04too that perhaps we have both become
00:05:06psychologists, that people still come to us a lot and
00:05:10start talking. My stories now, and if Kristo perhaps
00:05:13then uh, men
00:05:17uh, yes, they were exclusively men who tell me this, men
00:05:20complain or well, they say then that they have also had it like this and so
00:05:24on, so then many women have called
00:05:27and written to me, well, girlfriends or closer
00:05:30acquaintances and and and said, you know,
00:05:33that I completely know what you feel, I am also worried about
00:05:37my husband, that
00:05:40perhaps the whole point
00:05:44of this thing, or why talk about it like this here at all, is that
00:05:47uh, less in my opinion, that if on this story, like one person, and
00:05:51I say person because of course, like men are
00:05:54a bit more careless perhaps in taking care of their health, but actually we know that
00:05:57women too, for whom
00:06:01this can happen, that you don't deal with your health problem, you ignore it, you postpone
00:06:04it and then it ends with a bang, that if now one person
00:06:08thinks, oh, my wife here at home also said something that I should go check
00:06:12this or that and if he does it now, then I think that it
00:06:15has been worthwhile to talk about this, mhm,
00:06:18what happened to you? Last
00:06:21year I was diagnosed with a heart arrhythmia,
00:06:25atrial fibrillation, uh, and that
00:06:28means that at certain moments
00:06:31the so-called mm
00:06:34electrical system of the cardiovascular system mm goes into a short circuit,
00:06:38to put it very simply, and that means that the heart starts, so to speak,
00:06:42within a second, to put in very large amplitudes, that it is
00:06:4580 at one moment, then the next second it is 140, then it drops
00:06:49back to 90, then it goes to 150, well, completely there like
00:06:51the whole system goes into an error,
00:06:55a complete short circuit occurs, uh, usually it lasts
00:06:58for about a minute or two,
00:07:01uh, and most likely it was the same thing that happened to me live
00:07:04on air and it can then lead to fainting, just a feeling of malaise, everything else, so
00:07:08all my other indicators were fine. You said that you remember...
00:07:12the first sentences from that show, so I understand, yes,
00:07:16why didn't you leave the show or why
00:07:19as much as I have heard from the show's creators,
00:07:23you wanted to come back all the time, you didn't even agree to leave
00:07:26the studio, then they brought you that chair and then I understand
00:07:29that your condition got so bad that you
00:07:32collapsed uh and then when you were taken out,
00:07:36an ambulance was called, you still allegedly
00:07:40wanted to come back to the show? "I don't
00:07:43remember all of that actually, but what
00:07:46colleagues then, who were with me, and then colleague Mihail Kõlvart
00:07:50also said, when he had me, I was apparently knocked down twice, you were knocked down
00:07:53twice, yes, first you were knocked down, yes, and I don't remember that at all,
00:07:57but when I was, he helped me up and he told me that
00:08:01he would invite me to his martial arts training, because he needed exactly such
00:08:04men there, who after a knockout still say that
00:08:08no, I'm going, I'm going back to the ring here, I'm going to finish the job."
00:08:12And that, I think, comes from being an athlete,
00:08:15that no matter how difficult the
00:08:19task is, I was there with a goal, I was there
00:08:22with the goal of
00:08:25being a good debate participant, my
00:08:29thing, my head, my body had
00:08:32the goal that I have to be there, I have to try to do it as well
00:08:36as I can, uh, and that was also
00:08:39what bothered me the most afterwards at first,
00:08:42that "I had failed in that sense, that not like not
00:08:46that even my health was the most serious, but
00:08:50but I felt ashamed, I felt
00:08:52embarrassed, that
00:08:56I let the team down, I let down the people I represented there,
00:09:00uh, and that was why I wanted to be there,
00:09:04even if I didn't understand, uh,
00:09:07so to speak, motor skills, uh, then or
00:09:10such..." "didn't allow me to leave or
00:09:14give up, yet the ambulance
00:09:17came and took you away, took me away in a wheelchair
00:09:21to ITK and then various examinations were done.
00:09:24Stinne, when did you arrive at this TV house? Uh,
00:09:27I understand that basically at the same time as the ambulance. What was
00:09:31the drive here to the TV house like for you?
00:09:34Uh, in that sense, because my phone was
00:09:38red right from the first moment, so I'm sure I was talking
00:09:42to someone in the car, to everyone on the phone in that sense,
00:09:46that it could have been Kristo's mother who called and
00:09:49well, was worried and then I let people know that I was going
00:09:53there. Kristo, you have been working at a crazy pace
00:09:56for a long time and now these past times too, all
00:09:59this culminated now with that collapse in the first studio, have
00:10:03you sat down together and thought,
00:10:07stop, what kind of life are we living now and what kind of life
00:10:10do we want to live? "We have discussed
00:10:14it, well, in that sense,
00:10:17how I, after the first
00:10:21notifications I got on my smartwatch,
00:10:23that something was wrong. Well, I also looked, what then,
00:10:27but thanks to
00:10:31also started then I started
00:10:33looking for a solution to this, so to speak,
00:10:37uh, was that a couple of years ago, you are now
00:10:3929, I think it was then the autumn
00:10:43of 2024, uh,
00:10:45so yes, almost two years ago and
00:10:49then uh, and we have talked about it now,
00:10:52that uh, it is not sustainable.
00:10:55Clearly
00:10:57such a thing is not sustainable, such a pace in that sense, that you
00:11:01are actually still 24/7 uh
00:11:04always available, always then
00:11:07giving your maximum, besides that you try to still
00:11:11be a very good
00:11:12amateur athlete,
00:11:15uh, and do everything, that if you don't have those moments in the week
00:11:19where you can take time off, then then at some point it comes
00:11:23out, something good? Kristo promised
00:11:25you,
00:11:28now I promised that I will listen to you
00:11:30more, no, of course
00:11:34all sorts of promises have been made, right, but
00:11:37I understand that this uh,
00:11:40in that sense, that uh, the work Kristo
00:11:44does, that it's not like uh, oh, I know
00:11:47exactly where I can cut 30% less, it's not
00:11:51like that, well, I don't know, let's take this week's example, that ministers
00:11:55need to be changed, that I participate in this ministerial change
00:11:58but I don't do the other one, you can't do that,
00:12:01so it's obvious that this pace is very difficult
00:12:05to reduce and you just have to uh
00:12:08do it by force, then just set time limits, that yes, I deal
00:12:12with everything, but at this time I stop. You are
00:12:15both a member of the Parliament and the Secretary General
00:12:18of the Reform Party, mhm, two full-time
00:12:21positions, unfortunately even more than one.
00:12:25So, uh, has the thought of giving up
00:12:29these
00:12:30jobs not crossed your mind?
00:12:33In that sense, I don't think I could do anything calm, that
00:12:36no matter where I was then, I have also thought of course,
00:12:40that uh, I would like
00:12:44to be more seriously in the private
00:12:47sector at some point or actually go back to sports somehow, but no matter what I would do,
00:12:51it is, well, is it politics, was it sport,
00:12:55"I gave 110% to sports to become
00:12:58a top athlete, I don't know, when we have guests
00:13:01visiting, then we do 110% to make sure everything is ready, everything
00:13:05is good, people feel good, so it's not really an
00:13:08option for me to do something calm, something
00:13:12sedentary, a sedentary job,
00:13:15where there is low stress, I think no matter what field I
00:13:19would go into, I would operate more or less the same way, but it just has to
00:13:21uh, it just has to..."
00:13:26time to rest, well, Stinne, your life is also not
00:13:29some kind of taking it easy, you have also had a crazy career so far,
00:13:33you have been Andrus Ansip's office manager in Brussels, you have been Kaja Kallas's
00:13:36communication advisor here and there for many years, you
00:13:40currently work at Meta Advisors as a senior consultant for government relations,
00:13:43so your
00:13:47work pace and stress are also very high,
00:13:51so mm, what conclusions have you drawn,
00:13:54how do you take care of yourself, how do you find time for your dear child
00:13:57and each other?
00:13:58Uh, well, in that sense, that
00:14:01it's honest to say that I haven't always been the most
00:14:05exemplary in taking
00:14:08time for myself, that of course, there have been
00:14:11times when my own time and family time have also fallen
00:14:27somewhere, then I don't do anything carelessly, but perhaps what
00:14:31I have become smarter about during
00:14:35this time is saying no,
00:14:37that I can still uh, also tell people, even if
00:14:41another great idea comes up that needs to be done,
00:14:44then uh, I have found the courage
00:14:48in myself to say that uh, no thank you, not right now,
00:14:51that there are already enough activities."
00:15:23athletes and then that same diagnosis
00:15:27that I have, unfortunately have a correlation,
00:15:30that uh it still
00:15:33so to speak, the load that I have put
00:15:36on my body over the years, it
00:15:39can then start to show
00:15:43and and and the heart is a very, very
00:15:47important organ for every athlete. Both of you are actually members
00:15:51of the Reform Party, so young people are not in politics now and
00:15:54it is said that not many are coming up, because the field does not seem to be very
00:15:58attractive, that well, politicians are not
00:16:01exactly the most popular people in society,
00:16:04well, I will immediately give
00:16:08an example related to this again from a few days ago, right,
00:16:11that a young, beautiful, super cool
00:16:15experienced woman becomes the Minister of Economic Affairs
00:16:19and we look at the media image,
00:16:21it talks about who she is with, who her men
00:16:25have been, what children she has, who she has and what is happening on
00:16:29her Instagram account, next to her we have a new
00:16:32Minister of Defense,
00:16:35uh, stories only about what vision he has for the future, what
00:16:38positions he has held, what a great experience he has and he also has,
00:16:42but that uh
00:16:46why should I, for example, as a young woman, think why would I want to
00:16:49go there, why do I need it, I completely agree
00:16:53with Stinne, unfortunately or fortunately, no one
00:16:57discusses the enemy's tie color,
00:17:00they look at what he could do in the defense sector, but why
00:17:04be in politics, why, why am I also, why are so many others?
00:17:08It is still for the sake of our common project,
00:17:11this dear little Estonia where we live,
00:17:14this independent uh then
00:17:18country in this wonderful place with cool people,
00:17:22well, this project only moves forward if we contribute, it is not somehow self-
00:17:25explanatory, well
00:17:28the next step for Estonia or
00:17:31for us ourselves will not come from us feeling comfortable, someone has to contribute
00:17:35and and I think, I think our...
00:17:37especially what we have talked about, well, you want, firstly, that your next generations,
00:17:41similarly our daughter, that she would have an even better life, even, even
00:17:45more wonderful, even more stable, and that
00:17:48was also when I was in the Ministry of Defense at the beginning
00:17:52of the full-scale war, where we were probably one of the first European Union
00:17:56uh then delegations that visited Ukraine
00:17:59about a month after the start of the full-scale war, then
00:18:02Kyiv and Bucha Irpinn
00:18:05around there were probably liberated about one or two weeks
00:18:09ago, well, that image
00:18:12was was was terrible, in every
00:18:15sense and that was also the place where I thought, then
00:18:18our daughter was just half
00:18:20a year old, I also understood that okay, now
00:18:24no matter what else happens, I will try
00:18:27to contribute to ensuring that such a thing never happens in Estonia, that my daughter
00:18:31doesn't have to be under some ruins, waking up in the night
00:18:34to an air raid siren, well. So that's
00:18:38why I am in politics, why so many others are in politics, so that our next
00:18:42generations can also enjoy this good life
00:18:45that we actually have, well, I was born in a free
00:18:48Estonia, uh, I am immensely
00:18:52grateful for it, but it will not continue if we
00:18:55all only do that
00:18:58we contribute then, I don't know, to some
00:19:01companies and things, well, someone has to also contribute to the state, so
00:19:05I really, I really hope that actually... there are many young people
00:19:09like us, who do things at the top level
00:19:12in their sector, uh, and they actually discuss
00:19:16a lot about politics and society, but
00:19:20indeed, politics is
00:19:23in some places a bit mm a bit
00:19:26unpleasant, people uh, who are also
00:19:30there, also want to maintain the status quo, uh, they want to
00:19:33keep their positions and well, young people
00:19:37are accepted at the beginning with hugs and very nicely, oh
00:19:41someone is contributing, but then the next day they already start to look, oh dear, maybe
00:19:45this young person will take my place, well
00:19:48the struggle for life in politics is as tough as
00:19:51in any other sector.
00:19:55Thank you Stinne and Kristen for coming today, but
00:19:58coming back to the beginning of our interview,
00:20:02then first and foremost, you still need to think about your
00:20:05health, I would really like to read one line from your media post
00:20:09too. You can: I was diagnosed
00:20:12last spring with a heart arrhythmia, this is a story I was afraid to share, because
00:20:16it was embarrassing. How can anything be wrong with me, a healthy and athletic young
00:20:19person, but every time the media wrote again that some young man
00:20:23lost consciousness at a public sports event, and sometimes also
00:20:27unfortunately lost his life, I felt
00:20:30like urging people like me to think about their health, but I didn't
00:20:33dare, because I was afraid that
00:20:37I would then be weak if I
00:20:41did that and if I urged others, but
00:20:45it should be done more and also listening
00:20:47to our wives more.