Chris Mason: From inside the room, how Burnham survived first Trump meeting

Chris Mason: Inside the room, how Burnham got through his first Trump meeting

As I crouched among the cameras, intent on catching Donald Trump’s eye and putting a question to him, I heard a president trying to sound generous.

Trump, after all, can be warm when he chooses, just as he can be cutting.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who had been a mayor only months earlier, was seated beside the most powerful man in the world.

Framed that way, it is easy to understand why he said beforehand that he was looking forward to the meeting, though he must have felt a flicker of nerves too.

Burnham did appear slightly anxious as we reporters filed into the room, but for the most part the president’s praise came thick and fast.

The original plan had been to bring journalists in at the start of the meeting, perhaps only minutes after the two men first met.

Instead, we were left waiting while the private discussions went on, which had the advantage of giving them more to say about each other and about what they had talked over than would otherwise have been the case.

Burnham knew, and the world knows, how volatile these rolling, freewheeling, live-on-camera Trump encounters can be.

It is rollercoaster stuff without a harness.

After getting myself into the president’s line of sight, I waited for the final syllable of Burnham’s last word at the end of his opening remarks, then used the tiny pause to ask a question.

Was the prime minister someone you could do business with, I asked the president, given your political differences?

"I do, I think he's a natural business person. We've had a lot of discussions even before this meeting. We've spoken to each other numerous times on the phone. Yeah, I think so, I think so. He gets it. He understands what he has to do."

The warmth was obvious. Perhaps the nerves in Downing Street eased a little.

But how long would the questions continue? This is the president’s stage, and he decides how long the public performance runs. At times, they last well over half an hour.

This meeting took place on neutral ground, in a windowless, plain meeting room down a shabby corridor in the basement of the United Nations. It was not the Oval Office in the White House. That may have reduced the sense of occasion slightly.

Even so, how long could the president keep up the friendliness and apparent agreement? A question about immigration, a possible flashpoint, passed without trouble. So too did the Burnham government’s decision, announced by Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who was in the room, to sanction settlements in the West Bank, a move that enraged Israel.

But on the future of the Chagos islands, the president made no secret of his view that Britain’s decision to hand sovereignty to Mauritius and then lease back the military base on Diego Garcia was "terrible."

The president added: "I think the prime minister is going to be looking at [the deal]" and Burnham replied "yep".

Ah, interesting.

Later, it was my turn to conduct a brief interview with the prime minister on behalf of all the broadcasters.

Burnham said the meeting was "very encouraging" and that "we've established a good connection."

But what about the Chagos deal? Would it change, I asked. He pointedly called it a deal he had "inherited".

"We've got to find a resolution, and so work will continue now…to see where that resolution might lead."

In other words, it seems likely to change.

Clashes with Trump further down the line are almost unavoidable — hardly any leader escapes them with this administration, and Burnham may eventually choose to lean into some of them.

And even the ones he does not may lean into him, with Chagos possibly among them.

But outwardly Burnham now has a relationship with the president that he can build on after this first face-to-face meeting.

What followed in the prime minister’s remaining UN meetings was diplomacy by convention, not the wild ride with Trump he had just stepped off and survived.