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 do a short interview with the prime minister on behalf of all of the broadcasters.
Burnham emphasised that the meeting was “very encouraging” and “we’ve established a good connection.”
But what about the Chagos deal? Would it change, I asked. Pointedly, he described it as 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 looks like it is going to change.
Flashpoints down the track with Trump are near inevitable — barely any leader avoids them with this administration, and Burnham may want to lean into some, in time.
And even those he doesn’t might lean into him, Chagos possibly one of them.
But outwardly Burnham has a relationship with the president he can now build on after this opening face to face conversation.
What followed in the prime minister’s remaining meetings at the UN were diplomacy by convention, not the wild ride with Trump he had just stepped off and survived.