Raw Facts, and the Art of the Non-Deal

The confrontation with Zelensky was not an ambush, it was a prideful loss of emotional control

How many of you reading this right now actually watched the full press conference with Trump and Zelensky? Please raise your hands.

Be honest.

Looks like about 5% of you. Maybe 10%.

I didn’t watch it either, until a few hours ago, which prompted me to write this post.

I can tell you that a lot of the narrative you’re seeing and hearing on both sides are not the full truth. And before you criticize me for being “both-sidesist”, let me tell you that I’m the furthest thing from both-sidesist. Any of my subscribers that actually read my work would tell you that. My work speaks for itself. If you think I push both-sides propaganda, I invite you to read my posts and decide for yourself. I don’t.

I make clear what side I’m on.

However, I do try to be fair to reality; not anyone’s interpretation of reality, but actual reality.

And here’s my impressions of what happened on Friday between Zelensky, Trump, and Vance.

It wasn’t an ambush

I had been reading so much from sources I trust that the heated exchange was an “ambush” perpetrated by Trump and Vance, so that’s what I assumed happened. I only saw the clips of the arguing and interrupting so I felt like this was probably the correct scenario.

When J.D. Vance points his finger at Zelensky and says, “you’re wrong”, it lent further credence to the idea that Trump and Vance went into the meeting with the sole purpose of humiliating Zelensky and making him look like a weak fool with an insatiable appetite for swindling worldwide democracies out of their money.

The “ambush” narrative gave the impression that the meeting started out this way, and was an hour-long harangue designed to make Zelensky publicly break down.

But the reality was quite different. I watched the full 48-minute CSPAN broadcast, and I had to wait a full 39 minutes for any of the widely publicized fireworks.

The reality is this was mostly a pretty calm and respectful meeting. There were pretty obvious overtones of tenseness and disagreements, with both parties correcting the other to some degree, but these moments were fleeting. The pace of questions was fairly brisk and consistent throughout the first 40 minutes.

If it was truly an ambush, it would have turned quite a bit more quickly and would have been more obviously orchestrated.

Zelensky was responsible for the change in tone

In fact, the meeting turned when Zelensky confronted Vance about Vance’s platitudes on the need for “diplomacy” to make peace. Vance was being critical of Biden’s “talking” as opposed to taking action, which would have been “diplomacy”, according to him. It was definitely a politically expedient, but largely hollow, sentiment.

Zelensky then asked Vance, somewhat sarcastically, exactly what kind of diplomacy he had in mind, since Putin had broken 25 different ceasefire agreements, after his 2014 invasion of Ukraine (yes, the war in Ukraine is actually 11 years old, not just three). So Zelensky’s point about diplomacy being worthless when you’re dealing with Putin was a valid one. But the fact is he confronted Vance with a “gotcha” question that was designed to embarrass Vance.

Now, I agree with Zelensky’s side of this argument, and feel that Vance definitely needs to be put in his place with his ridiculous attacks on Biden.

But it wasn’t a smart move by Zelensky.

This is what started the cascade of disparagement and shouting that ensued. Vance responded forcefully, in Vance’s wannabe strongman way. And Trump took this as a cue to act tough, after largely behaving himself for 40 minutes. Trump didn’t want to be upstaged as the tough negotiator, so he took things to the next level and bullied his way through the rest of the conference.

Zelensky’s best move was to not challenge Vance, at least not publicly. He was doing a great job getting his points in during the course of the press conference, and this bit of showmanship wasn’t necessary. If his goal was to reach an agreement with the U.S. to get security guarantees, this wat not the way. He may not get them either way, but this definitely didn’t help this cause.

Zelensky’s not wrong

I feel for Zelensky here, because this meeting made apparent the main point of disagreement, which probably is driving him crazy.

The new U.S. administration he’s dealing with is suddenly treating Putin as an equal, fully rational party to the negotiations. And Trump is pridefully assuming that Putin will never break a ceasefire agreement while Trump’s in power.

The crux of the deal appears to involve giving the U.S. access to Ukraine’s “rare earth” supplies. Or, as Trump started saying, “raw earth” supplies. I was not confused about what Trump was after in Ukraine until this conference, but now I am. It’s either “rare earth”, “raw earth”, or some combination of both.

Anyway, the point being that there are many riches in Ukraine’s soil to which Trump wants the U.S. to have access. Zelensky does not have a problem with that, but he wants a security guarantee from the U.S. in return.

Trump kept saying throughout the conference that there’s no need for security agreements because the fact that the U.S. has access to Ukraine’s minerals and will be present there mining them should be security enough.

Zelensky spent much of this conference saying that security guarantees are definitely necessary to ward of Putin, and he even called Putin a “killer” at one point. He also made the point several times that Putin always reneges on deals and can’t be trusted. Hence, the need for security guarantees.

Trump made the point at least a few times during the meeting that Putin didn’t respect Obama or Biden, but respects him, and therefore Putin would never break a ceasefire agreement while Trump is in power.

And he appeared to be foolish enough to actually believe this. And you could see Trump’s discomfort emerge throughout the meeting whenever the prospect of Putin breaking a ceasefire came up.

This seems to be Trump’s main sticking point. He doesn’t want to give security guarantees to Ukraine, because he thinks they’re unnecessary, and is insulted by the idea that someone would think they’re necessary. And he’s probably aware that Putin will pretend to like him less if security guarantees are given, so he doesn’t want to give them.

Trump just wants access to Ukraine’s rare earth essentially as payment for services already rendered. And thinks that this will lead automatically to peace because Russia would never attack a country in which the U.S. is mining for precious materials.

On the other hand, Zelensky’s desire for security guarantees is really the only thing he cares about. He knows that without them, Putin will just ignore any ceasefires and the war will continue. So, signing over rare earth rights to the U.S. without security guarantees is simply giving some of Ukraine’s precious resources for no good reason.

When there is such a strong obvious record of Putin not honoring ceasefires, and the assumption of Putin honoring ceasefires is a main point of contention for Trump, it’s hard to blame Zelensky for pushing this point, even if the way he did it was a bit of a faux pax in the moment.

Trump didn’t get what he wanted

At one point during the calmer portion of the press conference, Trump made the point that he wouldn’t be an effective negotiator if he said a bunch of bad things about Putin. By insulting Putin, he said, it would lessen the chance of a deal because it would cool the warm relationship they apparently have.

But this approach went out the window at the end of the meeting when tough-guy Trump disparaged Zelensky for being ungrateful and seeming to not want peace. Apparently, being rude and insulting towards Zelensky is fine for negotiations.

The negotiations fell apart at this point, and any preliminary agreement between the U.S. and Ukraine went out the window.

The signing of a written outline of a deal in progress was to happen after this meeting. The parties were going to go to lunch and then a deal-signing ceremony. That was cancelled due to the fallout from the how the press conference ended.

Let’s look at what Trump, the master negotiator, has done to end the Ukraine-Russia conflict.

He promised during the presidential campaign that he would end the war in 24 hours, before he even became President. The war is still ongoing, so that didn’t happen.

He tried to get access to Ukraine’s precious resources, was on the verge of an agreement to achieve that, and it fell apart. So now the U.S. has no peace in Ukraine and no access to the “rare earth” Trump wants so badly.

When the rare earth demand first came up, it was hailed by MAGA as a brilliant twist to a deal. Sure, it was grotesquely transactional, but who cares? We get something we want (I guess world peace isn’t enough), and they supposedly get something they want (implied, but not guaranteed, security). Perfectly brilliant, don’t you think?

But the U.S. walked away with nothing. And they looked like petulant bullies to the rest of the world, further cementing worldwide isolation and distrust of the U.S. And the war continues.

Is there a point where Trump’s negotiation skills come under question by his fans?

Be a smart news consumer

One thing that I’d like to emphasize here is for all of us to be careful what we think and believe just by watching or listening to our preferred sources of news and commentary.

Yes, it’s great to hear sentiments similar to ours. It gives us hope and confidence with moving forward to create a better country and society.

But this incident is a perfect example of how things can get distorted quickly by everyone’s reporting. What actually happened was not conveyed accurately by almost anyone. A generally calm and reasonable press conference went off the rails as tensions mounted. A frustrated Zelensky went a bit too far in the moment with his criticism of the U.S.’s arguments, and it was the wrong administration to do that with, as they responded with all of the maturity you would expect from them.

Whatever side you're on, make sure you spend at least some time examining the raw facts instead of relying 100% on everyone else’s interpretation. I understand we don’t have the time to do this on every news item but pick one or two every once in a while, just to keep yourself and others honest.

Much like “raw earth”, raw facts are a valuable commodity these days.