Chris Mason: In the room with the president and the prime minister

Chris Mason: In the room with the president and the prime minister

Burnham seemed nervous at first, knowing how explosive these encounters with Trump can be, writes BBC political editor Chris Mason.

Prime Minister Andy Burnham, a mayor a matter of months ago, sat next to the most powerful man in the world.

Put like that, it sounds believable when he said in advance he was looking forward to the meeting, but there must have been a jab of nerves too.

Burnham did look a little nervous as us reporters trooped into the room, but then, for the most part, the compliments flowed from the president.

The original plan was for journalists to be invited in at the beginning of the meeting, perhaps just minutes after the men had first met.

Instead, we were kept waiting while the private talks took place, which came with the upside that they had more to say about each other and what they had discussed than would otherwise have been the case.

Burnham knew, the world knows, how explosive these rolling, free wheeling, live on camera encounters with Trump can go.

It is rollercoaster without a harness stuff.

How did Trump and Burnham's first meeting unfold?

Having got himself into the president's eyeline, I waited for the last syllable of Burnham's final word at the end of his opening remarks and I filled the brief silence with a question.

Was the prime minister a man you can do business with, I asked the president, given your political differences?

Prime Minister Andy Burnham and President Donald Trump held a private meeting at the United Nations, with the president expressing his support for the prime minister's decision to sanction settlements in the West Bank.

The two leaders had discussed various topics, including immigration and the Chagos islands, before the meeting. The president described the decision as