“Hello Everyone." The first two words from President Donald Trump as he walked into the Roosevelt Room at the White House for his interview with GB News.
It used to be called the Fish Room after Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President, turned Laurence Llewellyn Bowen in the 1930s and redesigned the White House West Wing to his own taste.
Roosevelt had used the room as a place for a tropical fish aquarium and to store his fishing trophies, before it was re-dedicated to him and Theodore Roosevelt by Richard Nixon in 1969.
So, perhaps, it’s apt to use a fishing analogy and say for GB News to get to speak to President Trump in the week he’d declared war on the BBC, that it was quite the catch.
I’d never previously had to wait an hour and a half in a windowless room for the most powerful and unpredictable man in the world to appear before.
I can tell you it can get quite tense. Every muscle - and I mean every muscle - tenses. Before the GB New team arrived at the White House, we’d first been told the interview would happen at 2pm. Then it would be 3pm. Then it turned into 4pm. As we approached 4pm, an aide appeared to say Potus would be there "more like 4.30.”
We weren’t going to argue, presenter Bev Turner was sat reading her interview notes, facing the chair where the President would be sat to give his verdict on whether or not he would be suing the Beeb within the hour. It was happening; it was now just a matter of time.
Then the connecting door from the Oval Office swung open, and the imposing figure of White House Communications Director Steven Cheung emerged to say: “Five minutes.”
The tension rose further still with everyone quietly and nervously awaiting the imminent arrival of Potus. I don’t know if it was the constant, silent and steely presence of a man from the Secret Service, but I noticed time slowed down in that room.
People slowed down, too. Every step was taken with care, no sudden movements.I suppose that’s to be expected when the man in the next room has had at least two attempts on his life, and he’s surrounded by armed guards.
And then he strode in, genial and dapper in a yellow and white pin-striped tie and navy-blue suit, and the tension went away.
Bev stood to greet him before he sat down, the cameras not yet rolling but already discussing the Panorama scandal and asking her how big a story it had been in Britain.
Pretty big, Mr President…My vantage point was in the far corner of the room, with Steven Cheung standing just to my right.
He was directly in the President’s eyeline throughout - perhaps ready to step in and bring proceedings to a close if there was a situation in the room he didn’t particularly like.
He used to be in a similar role for mixed martial arts mega brand UFC, and it looks like he can handle himself like one of those cage-fighting chaps.
Ever the coward, I knew I wasn’t going to stand in his way if something had gone wrong and he had to step in. I’m afraid Bev would have had to fight for herself.
Then it began.
When Bev kicked off asking about his achievements in the first year of his second bite at the Presidency, he quickly went into full flow, and we saw the same guy we see most nights on TV entertaining - or intimidating, depending on your view - visiting foreign politicians.
Unpredictable, intense, entertaining: Inside GB News' agenda-setting interview with Donald Trump - Mick Booker | Getty Images
But when questioning turned to the thorny matter of the BBC’s manipulation of his January, 6, 2021 speech, we saw a different side.
From my perspective, I saw a man genuinely surprised and annoyed at what had happened on Panorama, and, as had just been pointed out to him a few hours before our interview, on an edition of Newsnight.
From a man who can start and end wars with a single sentence, he looked shocked that his words could be misrepresented in such a dangerous way.
We all know he loves to talk, and for about 50 minutes, he was happy to shoot from the lip on everything from immigration to climate change, from patriotism to Scottishness. His trademark New Yorker turn of phrase and unpredictability came together most memorably when discussing crime on the streets of London.
Ever the professional, Bev just about kept her composure when, discussing the capital and its Mayor Sadiq Khan, the President claimed that people walking the streets regularly “get stabbed in the ass”.
Luckily, they weren’t picked up on the mics around the room, but there were a fair few snorts of surprise at that point. Enjoying himself, the President saw off one attempt by his aides to wrap up the interview. Bev fired in a couple more questions - about what he thinks about lying awake at 3am and life as a Grandfather - that allowed him to show off his more human side.
With that, it was finally over … until he beckoned the GB News team through the door from which he’d arrived and asked, “Do you want to see the Oval Office?" He didn’t have to ask twice, and soon we were in the world’s most famous, and possibly most brightly lit room, being shown around by a man who had suddenly transformed into the world’s most powerful tour guide.
Even more presidential aides appeared from nowhere, slightly bemused but clearly used to these impromptu moments.
We could hear loud music outside - sounding for all the world like there was a busy garden party going on outside. He opened the door for us to go out onto the newly renovated Rose Garden terrace, where the music was blaring - but though I was expecting a scene full of revellers sipping drinks on a Friday night, no one was around.
As a President, he’s certainly got his critics, and if you lived next door to him playing that racket on a Friday night, you might not exactly call him an ideal neighbour either. With that, we were back in the Oval Office for a quick chat about what was going on in British politics and what his pal Nigel Farage was up to.
Then we packed up and made the mad dash back to our Washington studio for The Late Show Live, while back at our London HQ, the crack producing and editing team made sure the interview was ready to go to air on time.
During the visit, I’d got to call him 'Mr President’ - something I’d seen mainly said previously by panicky assistants to fictional TV and film Presidents on screen after giving them bad news about an imminent nuclear strike.
This occasion hadn’t quite been that serious, although the aftershock from the interview did send ripples around the world.
The next day, as Bev and I waited for a flight back home, the interview was still making headlines, with clips being played out on screens and channels around the world.
After landing back home, the plane doors opened, and the fresh-ish British air poured in, we headed for the bus to the terminal.
As we did so, I turned to Bev, saying: "I hope you’ve got your ass protectors on…” She wasn’t in the mood for laughing after feeling queasy, blaming the odd-tasting pasta she’d had on the plane.
Back to the ‘real’ world.
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