Wow, what an event in the Oval Office. Since it’s been the talk of the town, I thought that I could also give some input with some critical thinking. I will watch the meeting and evaluate the claims in their truthfulness, logical reasoning, and potential backstory. I believe critical thinking is much more needed now-a-days, because I know people tend to lose themselves when driven by emotion. I hope by sharing this content I could encourage people to think more critically and not to go crazy for any claim.

Timeline to the Oval Office Meeting

In order to understand why the participants may have acted as they did in the meeting, understanding what led up to the situation in the Oval Office could help. “Setting the scene” can be just as important in understanding why something happened “at the climax” of a story.

Now before Zelenskyy comes to the U.S., it does seem like there are attempts from Trump to make things a little less “testy” with Zelenskyy. [4]

From my own personal perspective, it honestly suprised me to see Starmer, Macron, and Zelenskyy try to reach out to Trump in order to secure a security deal for Ukraine even with rising tensions. It would seem that the European leaders know how much U.S. influence plays into having security in Europe.

Before going into the meeting analysis, it’s worth noting the perspective that Trump and the Republican party could be holding. In general, Republicans are moving towards an isolationist approach, where they believe that the U.S. should prioritize U.S. problems first. Trying to aid Ukraine’s problems doesn’t come in line with “America First” priorities. As well, there have been questions if the money and aid being sent to Ukraine is being put to good use.

Meeting Analysis

This is where I hope to break down the meeting into claims and reasoning. I will be using the C-SPAN YouTube video, and a transcript of the meeting from AP News.

By way of introduction, Trump’s logic and behavior definitely are in line with what I imagine a classic business man would be doing. A classic businessman needs to show confidence that the deal he is offering is the best and only deal possible.

The first thing I would flag is Trump claims that the Biden administration had no contact with Russia in order to end the war. “The Biden administration didn’t speak to Russia whatsoever. They didn’t speak to anybody, the just, uh, allowed this to continue.” As far as rhetoric goes, this is a common strategy from Trump to use “straw man”, and he uses this strategy plenty times in this meeting. He loves to misrepresent any opponent’s positions or actions in order to propel his own position. As such, Trump’s statement on the Biden administration is also a misleading statement. Biden and Putin both have turned down peace talks throughout Biden’s time as president, and both sides have fundamentally different approaches to a ceasefire. Trump is oversimplfying the role the Biden administration played, and by oversimplfying he is trying to discount the effort of the Biden administration. [5]

Here is another common bias that Trump shows, and that is “self-serving bias”. In this Oval Office meeting, he claims “there’s never been a first month like we had”. While I agree with Trump, I bet it’s for different reasons. Trump would claim that everything he has done has been successes, but he disregards all of the trips and failures along the way. The courts are blocking some of his orders, and federal workers are left without a job or confused if they’ll have a job. Trump is “self-serving” by showing supposed highlights of the first month rather than admitting to the mistakes of the first month.

In Zelenskyy’s introduction, he affirms his point is to get security guarantees for Ukraine, and to sell his point further his shares imagery of beaten and malnourished Ukrainian soldiers at the hands of Russian forces. Zelenskyy also mentions that Ukrainian children have been abducted into Russia, and it’s a Ukraine goal to get them back. Zelenskyy is “framing” his petition with the Russian abuse of the Ukrainian people. This is definitely intended to spark a sense of compassion for the people that have suffered in order to get aid for Ukraine. Emotion would be a stronger force for obtaining aid than a logical one.

When Trump is in the middle of “making a deal” he’ll almost always say that “he knows the other person for a very long time”. He’s said this about Zelenskyy and Putin in this Oval Office meeting. It’s as if Trump was to communicate that there is stability in that working relationship, so he needs to show that he is confident in that working relationship. It would also be very flattering of the other person. It seems that Trump is trying to create an “illusion of control” that everything is going to play out fine. How can he be trusted that he has control over what Russia and Ukraine are thinking?

The next thing I spotted was something reminds me of “hindsight bias”. Trump claims that the Ukraine war would never have started if he were president. Of course, when anyone is looking back in “hindsight” they are free to make any claims they may, but it doesn’t mean that it’s a real claim because it can never be proven. If it can’t be proven, then why should the claim be given any credit as if it were true?

Zelenskyy does state in the meeting that he believes the U.S. is a strong ally and will continue to give aid. This might be a bit optimistic on Zelenskyy’s part considering the tension that led up to the meeting. Even then, Zelenskyy is in dire situation, and taking an optimistic route is the only thing he can do. Optimism helps serve hope that Ukraine can outlast Russia.

For the majority of the meeting, the previously mentioned fallacies and biases were present. Now to the meat of the meeting.

The Argument

While remaining silent for the majority of the meeting, Vance decides to answer a question that was from a Polish reporter to Trump. The Polish reporter conveys that the Polish people lived under Soviet rule and they are afraid of further Russian aggression into eastern Europe. Trump and Vance essentially say that they understand both sides, and they want to make sure there is peace even though each side hates each other. They claim that the way to peace is to ensure concessions from Ukraine to Russia that way fighting would stop even though Ukraine would be losing a large part of their own land.

This seems to me like a misleading assertion about eastern European history. Wouldn’t Ukraine and eastern European countries have a much better feel for how Russia behaves than the United States? As repeated several times throughout the meeting, there are oceans between the U.S. and Russia, and the U.S. could very well have a distance bias for the behavior of Russia. So how reasonable is it for some distant foreigner to come in and tell Ukraine to play along with Russian demands?

Zelenskyy makes a question after this, and it’s pointed towards Vance. Zelenskyy states that they’ve tried diplomacy with Putin several times and Putin walked all over the previous peace agreements. He some detail previously in the meeting about Putin’s advances into Ukraine. Zelenskyy asks Vance, “What kind of diplomacy, JD, you are speaking about? What do you mean?” I think it’s an honest question, especially considering that the Ukranians have tried so much to procure peace with Russia in the past 10 years even with continued Russian advances. At what point is some country bullied enough and fights are justified for peace?

To give credit to Vance and Trump, they are outwardly showing that they want to end the deaths that are occurring. I honestly don’t doubt that they want deaths to end. They really do believe that just ending the war will stop all hostilities.

In an answer to Zelenskyy, Vance and Trump respond with elevated emotion that conveys so many biases and fallacies.

If biases and fallacies were to be accounted for, then it’s clear that Trump and Vance expressed more than Zelenskyy did. Zelenskyy tried to take the biased attacks in stride, but Trump and Vance wouldn’t let him. I believe that by using so many biases in a charged setting, they intended to swing the American public that the administration is competent and superior Zelenskyy. But Zelenskyy didn’t back down. According to a body-language expert, Zelenskyy probably knew of Trump’s tactics to portray himself as the strong man, and so Zelenskyy tries to match Trump’s body language in order to put them on common ground. As well, both Zelenskyy and Trump avoid eye-contact as to not escalate the conversation beyond it’s heated point. Because of this, I believe it wasn’t Zelenskyy’s intention of offend the office as Vance was claiming. Or else Zelenskyy would have taken a much stronger stance.

Summary

Politicians use biases and fallacies in order to move policies along, and Trump and Vance are no different with their America First agenda. By using critical analysis of the Oval Office conversation, it can be seen that Trump and Vance use biases in order to convey Trump’s supposed competency in foreign relations or Trump’s favor of Russia. With how many biases were present in the argument, they did not convey control of the peace talks. Instead, they conveyed a willingness to abandon Ukraine to Russia’s invasion since Zelenskyy wouldn’t give in to Trump and Vance’s demands. By being more informed of Trump and Vance’s rhetoric, the normal American citizen can more understand what Trump and Vance are really trying to do, and that is posing as strong men for their own self-glory while making the U.S. more into a strong man figure.

Sources

  1. Ground News: Trump’s call with Putin ends U.S. efforts to isolate Russia
  1. Ground News: Trump team to start Russia-Ukraine peace talks in Saudi Arabia
  2. Ground News: Trump says ‘dictator’ Zelenskyy ‘better move fast’ or he won’t have a country left
  1. Ground News: Trump Says Relationship With Zelenskyy Got ‘Testy’ Amid Russia-Ukraine Talks—And ‘Dictator’ Accusation
  2. Peace talks during Biden’s Presidency.

Other Sources