Andy Burham was dealt a terrible blow as GB News reported on his first meeting with Donald Trump.
Burnham is in the US for his first meeting with Donald Trump (Image: Getty)
GB News‘ breakfast programme returned to screens on Tuesday (September 22), with presenters Alexander Armstrong and Ellie Costello at the helm when it was halted for breaking news. The co-hosts were joined by journalist Freddy Gray, who spoke on the major “diss” Andy Burnham was dealt ahead of his meeting with US President Donald Trump. This comes as the two leaders will have their first face-to-face discussion in New York City for just 30 minutes.
Addressing the usual agreement for their first meeting, the GB News guest highlighted: “There’s so much to discuss and yet they have to cram it to half an hour, just before Trump talks to the Japanese Prime Minister.” He added: “I think what Downing Street would’ve liked is a White House event for them to be their first coming together as world leaders. That just wasn’t on the cards …I think for a British Prime Minister to be squeezed in, in the middle of several other meetings, is a bit of a diss.”
Trump will be meeting Burnham in New York (Image: Getty)
Talking to the presenters, Freddy added: “I think the tricky thing for Burnham is he wants to say ‘forget the things I said about Donald Trump in the past,’ in 2017, of course, everyone now knows, he said he wouldn’t meet him because of racist things he’d done on the internet.
During his time as Manchester Mayor, Burnham had a critical stance about the US leader and previously stated that Trump was unwelcome in Greater Manchester due to his “poisonous” and “divided, dark politics.”
Then, in 2021, as rioters stormed the US Capitol, the Prime Minister fiercely condemned Trump and famously said that “any UK politician who gave Trump the time of day should be ashamed right now”.
Addressing their meeting, the GB News guest also speculated: “He’s also going to say ‘forget the last 10 years of perceived British decline, we’re now on the mend.'”
Ahead of their meeting, Trump shared his thoughts on Burnham, downplaying his leadership as that of a “mayor of a town.”
The President stated that he had heard the Prime Minister was “extremely liberal” and expressed scepticism about Burnham’s energy policy, predicting he “probably won’t open up” the North Sea for further oil and gas drilling
Speaking to the UK press travelling with him to the UN summit in New York, the PM deftly walked back from his own words.
He told journalists: “As I have said, politicians say things throughout their career, but now the important thing is to focus on the moment you are in, and I did say to the president in our first phone call, I said, ‘Mr President, Manchester isn’t some town’, I said, ‘This is Manchester’.
“And so yes, the right thing to do is to have a laugh about it, isn’t it, and move beyond it.”