The incident with the Ukrainian politician is based on an anecdote told by Republican consultant Marlin Fitzwater (who was also a consultant to the West Wing), about Boris Yeltsin's first visit to the White House. Yeltsin was a member of the Russian Parliament at the time, and he wanted to meet President Bush, but the president thought Gorbachev would take offense if he received Yeltsin in the Oval Office. "Yeltsin refused to come in the building, in effect, unless he could meet the president," Fitzwater recalls. A compromise was struck: Yeltsin agreed to meet Bush in the national security adviser's office, "so he could say he met the president and we could say he never got into the Oval Office."
Senator Tony Marino (Mike Starr) states that he had ten weeks of his term left to serve after being voted out in the general election:
- US elections are held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November and a Senator's term expires on January 3. If Senator Marino had ten weeks of his term left to serve after being defeated in the election, he would have been defeated in late October not early November.