Andy Burnham meets President Trump

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1:30Also at the UN, President Trump has raised the possibility of annihilating Iran again. We'll assess the state of that conflict on the eve of a speech to the General Assembly from the Iranian president. Also are EU sanctions against Russian oligarchs holding firm and why filmmaking continues to be a working world dominated by men. Only a few weeks ago, President Trump said Andy Burnham was extremely liberal and, with apologies to listeners in Manchester, the former mayor of a town. Now, following the two men's first face-to-face meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the President says Mr Burnham is someone he can do business with.

2:13They met for around 20 minutes and then answered questions from the media. Some of those questions could have underlined key differences between the two men, but the exchanges were mostly cordial. You and I have established a good connection in our early discussions and we've taken that further today. We've touched on Ukraine and it's great to hear what you said today about the potential for progress there. You know that we're still ready to play our part in the Middle East in terms of helping you stop the conflict, open the strait. Obviously, we're with you that Iran must never be a nuclear power.

2:52Well, Mr Burnham said they also spoke about the Falklands and about trade. The only obvious point of friction was the deal over the Chagos Islands, which President Trump called terrible and ridiculous while sitting with the Prime Minister in front of the cameras. This is what Mr Burnham said to broadcasters when he was asked about it afterwards. Well, I've inherited the situation and we need a resolution. it's critical to safeguard the future of the base and that matters to us for security reasons but also clearly to the United States as well so what I said in the meeting is that we will work to find that resolution between the different sides and we'll work hard to find it it was clear that we need to come to that agreement but I'm confident we can find it working with our US partners Well, our political editor Chris Mason has been travelling with the Prime Minister and managed to get a question in during that press conference.

3:53How did the two men look to you, Chris? Yes, evening to you, Julian, from the inevitably noisy streets of New York. Yeah, I decided it's always a bit of a splash of art form and sharp elbows for reporters in those situations and then a good dose of luck. I decided if I was vaguely on my knees in between all of the cameras I might be able to catch the eye of the president who was sitting down whereas those reporters were standing up and catching his eye does help in these moments. I think the thing worth emphasising, Julian, is we are used to, aren't we, because there are plenty of examples of it, of Donald Trump in a Serbic mood.

4:31It is also true, and I've seen this first-hand now a handful of times, it is also true that when he wants to turn on the warmth, he can really do that. And principally today, in those exchanges in front of the cameras, that was the tone that we heard. A bonhomie, a warmth, an attempt to get to know someone in Andy Burnham neither man had met before. Yes, as you say, clearly a difference of view around the Tragoz Islands. And strikingly, the Prime Minister saying he's reviewing that deal. But number 10 tonight are relieved. They are pleased to have got through it. and they are smiling because clearly it could have, without question, gone a lot worse and I think they can point to quite a few positives from it.

5:15I was going to say, I mean, there could have been more differences aired, frankly, couldn't there? Oh, without question, without question. You know, he was asked a question about immigration, the president, for instance, and that could have been potentially awkward. Yes, the Prime Minister can point, from his perspective, to better numbers in terms of declining numbers of those trying to cross the channel in small boats. He could have started talking to a far greater extent than the President's about defence spending. There's that still unresolved question about the uptick in defence spending by 2030 that the new Chancellor, former Defence Secretary John Healey, is wrestling with.

5:56I mean, you name it, we could draw up an extensive list, couldn't we, of matters domestic and foreign, about which there would be potential disagreement. and President Trump is quite expert in finding disagreements sometimes when you might not even anticipate it. And that didn't happen. And from Number 10's perspective, that amounts to a significant win. And briefly, Mr Burnham will address the General Assembly in the coming hours, won't he? He will. In theory, that is the kind of set-piece big moment, obviously somewhat overtaken by events earlier in the day. But yeah, around about half midnight, one o 'clock in the morning, your time.

6:33his speech to the UN, a real focus on artificial intelligence. The argument he will make is he wants the UK to be an honest broker in trying to strive for some sort of global agreement around AI. Quite a bold ambition, that, but he's picking up where Rishi Sunak left off, trying to position the UK as influential between America and China in this central technology of our time. Chris, thank you very much. Chris Mason in New York. While prior to the Trump-Burnham meeting, the president addressed the UN General Assembly in a wide-ranging speech, he said the end to the conflict in Ukraine is, quote, around the corner.

7:12He sparked a walkout of the Cuban delegation when he described the island nation as a failed state. And he rebranded artificial intelligence as super intelligence, emphasising again that he is dead against international regulation, something Andy Burnham, as Chris was saying, is advocating. He reserved, though, some of his strongest language for Iran. Will a deal be made with Iran that lets them rebuild and create a far greater country than it ever was before? Maybe one of the greatest in the Middle East or even the world. Or do I annihilate the Islamic Republic and do it quickly, never giving them a chance to kill and destroy people and countries again?

7:58Do I drive them into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness or generations? But I believe we'll make a deal right after the election because it doesn't make sense for them not to. They're waiting to see how I do in the midterm election. What they don't realize is that I'm not running. I did that already and won in a landslide. We won in a giant landslide. And I'll be here for two and a half years. The Republican Party is running and I'll be helping them. But I am not running. I gave absolutely no credence and will not give credence to the election when it comes to Iran.

8:43It doesn't even enter my mind. The only thing that does is that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. Well, public rhetoric aside, what is the current state of the war and the negotiations to try and end it? Dina Esfandiari is the Middle East lead at Bloomberg Economics against a backdrop of that speech and the prospect of an address to the General Assembly by the Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian tomorrow. I asked her first what the current situation is in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Well, the situation hasn't changed much. The strait is half open, half closed. There are some ships getting through with the help of the US military.

9:24Others are being blocked. There are reports that Iran shot at a ship over the last 24 hours. So shipping is still disrupted. And no matter what happens today, it's likely to remain disrupted. President Trump, in his address to the UN General Assembly today, made various claims about what the Americans have achieved so far in this war. He said the US had obliterated Iran's nuclear capabilities, put it beneath mountains of rubble, he said, and also that the Americans have severely weakened Iran's military capabilities. How true are those claims? There is a certain amount of truth to them. Of course, both Iran's military capabilities and nuclear program have been weakened.

10:09Iran's nuclear program at the moment is suspended, not because the whole thing has been obliterated, but rather what they have attacked, not during this war, but during the last one in June of last year, ensured that it would make it difficult for Iran to rebuild quickly and to start enriching quickly. So for now, all of it is suspended. In terms of its military capabilities, of course, much of them have been taken out, particularly facilities and capabilities along the coastline, which the Trump administration has targeted in particular. But again, what matters is not so much how much Iranian capabilities have been taken out, but rather what does that mean in terms of Iranian behaviour?

10:48And the problem is that so far it's done very little to change Iranian behaviour, Iran's willingness to continue the war and Iran's ability to continue the war. What of other negotiation efforts? You mentioned Qatar. People will also remember the role that Pakistan have played on and off as would-be mediators in all of this. Are they still active? Yes, I think they're very active. I think the Qataris in particular look pretty exhausted from all of the back and forth that they've been doing and sending their envoy to Tehran and talking to the Americans. So yes, they're very active. The Pakistanis and others are as well.

11:27The problem is that the only thing that they can do is convene and pass messages and really impress upon both sides how important it is for them to come to the negotiating table and for them to make concessions. then it's really up to the US and Iran. And a word about Mr. Pazesh Kian. He's arrived in New York. He speaks to the UN General Assembly tomorrow. How much influence does he potentially carry here given the structure of the way Iran is run? And he clearly isn't necessarily the man in charge. I think he may not be the main man in charge, but I think there are no main men in charge right now in Iran.

12:06I think the system has changed from where it was a few months ago where you had one supreme leader who was the final decision maker. Now you have multiple centers of power who are deciding on equal footing after a lot of debate, a lot of discussion. So having one man present in New York is good, because at least it gives you an interlocutor. But it's definitely not the solution, because even if he makes an agreement, even if he comes to the negotiating table, and even if he agrees to concessions, then he has to take it back home to Tehran and sell it to his internal audience. And that is also a whole other ballgame.

12:40An internal audience that includes millions of people who continue to live under sanctions and who continue to suffer under sanctions. Absolutely. And that's not going to stop anytime soon. The Iranians have been under sanctions for decades now and the latest round, it's just going to squeeze them further. But again, And that doesn't mean it's going to change the government's behaviour. And in fact, so far, it's done very little to change government behaviour. Dina Esfandiari. So what happens next? Robert Malley is a former US envoy to Iran. I asked him what we might expect the Iranian president to say tomorrow.

13:18I think we should expect what the Iranians have been saying for some time, that they're both open to diplomacy, but also ready to fight back if they feel like they're being the victim of US warfare. So I don't think we should expect anything particularly new. I think we know that there was a meeting between Iranians and Americans. That's where the action is. I think a speech is important, but it's not going to tell us all that much. You mentioned that meeting, and President Trump did refer to the fact that U.S. and Iranian officials had met today. Given that he had also delivered a speech in which he talked of the possibility of annihilating Iran, are you surprised that meeting took place?

13:56Nothing that President Trump says is surprising. I mean, it was a speech that was in so many ways outlandish. I mean, calling for the annihilation of another country in the most brutal terms. Imagine if another leader had said that. I think you would have seen quite a few people walk out. And so I think right now the focus is on the diplomatic channel that is opened here. Better to be talking than not to be talking. And the Iranian delegation did walk out during his speech, just with reference to those who didn't want to listen to any more of it. In terms of where that diplomatic landing place could be, how do you see that?

14:32It's been very difficult, and that's why we haven't had a diplomatic arrangement so far. I mean, the Iranian view is that they have leverage in terms of the economic pain that they have been able to inflict, not just on the United States, but on the rest of the world. And so they want a return to the memorandum of understanding that was reached between the U.S. and Iran a few months ago, sanctions relief. They want the ability to sell their oil. They want the ability to have access to some of the funds that the U.S. has frozen economic relief in exchange for opening and allowing the free flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz.

15:06The U.S. perspective is quite different. Their perspective is we are really holding, strangling Iran's economy. They are living through the most hellish conditions economically. They're the ones who have to come and offer us the concessions for us to be willing to lift the blockade. So when you have such a distinctive view of who holds the leverage, it becomes very difficult to find a deal. The one reason for hope is that objectively, both sides would benefit if the Strait of Hormuz were open and Iran could sell us oil and get the proceeds from the sale of oil. And if the U.S. could see some of the price of the fuel at the pump start going down, particularly between now and the midterms.

15:46So there's an objective convergence of interests. but there's so much distrust, there's so much different way of looking at things, and that makes it very difficult to find a landing spot anytime soon. You mentioned the midterms. I mean, how much do they matter here in the context of people seeing some kind of timeline or deadline in the relatively near future? Well, this is one thing where I think President Trump did speak the truth when he says that the midterms are not that crucial from his perspective. And I'd say for several reasons. One, he considers perhaps the results are more or less baked in.

16:18More likely than not, the Republicans are going to lose the House. They may even lose the Senate. And even if he reached a deal with Iran, it probably wouldn't be in time to change anything in terms of the cost of living. So it may be too late for that. Now, on the other hand, we know President Trump is very unpredictable. But at this point, as I said, I tend to agree with President Trump. I don't think the elections are a crucial milestone. And I think Iranians may have put too much weight into them. Just on the optics of this, I mean, it's curious, isn't it, to see a delegation from Iran arriving in the United States, yes, for a UN gathering, but it's still in the United States, when Iran is at war with the United States.

17:00Well, yes and no. I mean, it's kind of one of the accidents of history that the UN headquarters are in New York, and the rule is that they should allow anyone to come in. I would note parenthetically that they barred the president of the Palestinian Authority for the second year in a row. It's almost unprecedented to see a country that is war with the U.S. send its foreign minister, its delegation and its president here and speak to the U.N. But it shouldn't be abnormal because that's precisely what the U.N. should be. And the fact that the U.N. headquarters are in the U.S. shouldn't give the U.S.

17:29the ability to keep people out if they don't want them to come in. Robert Malley, former U.S. envoy to Iran.

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18:42Coming up later, the Attorney General of one Canadian province tells us why she's bringing a lawsuit against the company OpenAI following a school shooting earlier this year. The chats between the shooter and ChatGBT were so alarming at some point that the human safety team recommended to their supervisors that it be reported to the police, but that was never done. And you can hear that interview in full in 10 minutes time.

19:33competitors. Ineos Acetyles, part of the Ineos Group, is the only European producer of key chemicals used in a wide range of products, from food and medicines to explosives, and gas is a key ingredient in production. Well, Ben King is from the BBC's Business and Economics Unit. Does he think Sir Jim's assessments of current UK gas prices are accurate? They are broadly in line with what you see on the open markets. I mean, if you look at what's happened since the US-Israel war with Iran, UK gas prices have more than doubled because a lot of the gas that we depend on is liquefied natural gas that comes through the Strait of Hormuz from places like Qatar.

20:17Supplies of that have been largely closed off since the war began, and the UK is very much exposed to that. So is Europe. The US is broadly self-sufficient in gas. In fact, it's a big exporter of gas. So prices there are much less affected. He's pausing production. But what does this mean for these three sites longer term potentially? Well, he says he's pausing production and that they will start again when gas prices come down or when they're able to secure direct supplies of liquefied natural gas from the US. But that we think could take about 12 months. But nonetheless, if you look at what's happened to gas prices in the past day or two, they have actually come down dramatically.

20:56And with every twist of politics and with every military development, the price of gas goes up and down. So it could be a situation that resolves itself quite quickly or it could be one that drags on. What of the production in terms of what they're actually putting out there and what British companies are using? These are key chemicals that they're producing, isn't it? That's right. They produce what they call acetyls. So acetic acid, that's the chemical in vinegar that gives it the sour smell and chemicals that are derived from it. They're basically quite simple chemicals that are used in a whole range of industrial processes.

21:32For instance, some of them are used to decaffeinate coffee. They're used to make aspirin and paracetamol. They're also used for high-grade military explosives, they say. But they're used in a whole range of different things. And that's why they would be able to make a good case, I think, that this was a critical industry. I mean, he has warned about the cost of running the plant in the past. INEOS has even talked about tariff protection, hasn't it, against Chinese products specifically? That's right. I mean, the gas price situation for UK industry and indeed the electricity price situation has got much more serious since February.

22:08But it's a long running problem. If you look back in October, this same division of INEOS, INEOS Assetiles, cut 20 % of its workforce. and they blame this on high energy prices, but they also mentioned cut price competition from China. And they said that actually in these specific markets that they work in, the Chinese companies are increasing production. And they called for tariffs. So specific import taxes applied on Chinese imports of the chemicals that they make that would protect them from that cut price competition. Any chance of that happening? Well, it's difficult to say in this particular case, but it is something that countries are allowed to do and that they do do.

22:49They call them anti-dumping duties. And in a situation where a foreign country is perhaps unfairly subsidising its industries and then selling the products of those industries on your markets for less than they cost to produce, you are allowed under WTA rules to put tariffs on those goods. It has happened in the past. So Jim Ratcliffe, to take us back to where we began, has been a critic of this government for a while. Indeed, only within the last week or so. He said the country was on the slide. That's right. He gave an interview to our business editor, Simon Jack, where he sort of criticised a number of different government policies.

23:26He mentioned immigration. He sort of attacked politicians for their decisiveness. But I think energy policy and the things that specifically relate to his businesses are the key to his kind of longstanding beefs with the government. And that was Ben King. Now, it was one of Canada's deadliest mass shootings. Nine people are dead after a gunman opened fire at a school at a home in British Columbia. About two dozen others are hurt. Officials say six people were discovered dead inside of the school. Another died on the way to the hospital. Two more victims found at a separate location. Officials say the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

24:05In February this year, at Tumblr Ridge in British Columbia, Jessie Van Rootsala killed her mother and half-brother at their home before going to the local secondary school where she killed six people and injured 27 others before killing herself. She was a former student of the school. Well, now the authorities in British Columbia are suing OpenAI over its alleged failure to notify authorities about concerning user interactions on ChatGPT prior to the mass shooting. The company has previously apologised for not flagging Jesse Van Rootsala's account to law enforcement. Well, earlier I spoke to the Attorney General of British Columbia, Nikki Sharma.

24:46I asked her why she decided to take legal action against OpenAI. We suffered a big tragedy on February 10th and lots of young people lost their lives in the school shooting. And what we discovered after that was that the chats between the shooter and chat GBT were so alarming at some point that the human safety team recommended to their supervisors that it be reported to the police, but that was never done. And since then, I think there's been many claims about how the design of AI and the way it's meant to be human-like and develop a relationship can actually be enabling of criminal behavior.

25:23So we launched a lawsuit against OpenAI kind of in parallel with the families that are also pursuing that kind of accountability in the hope that we can make the system safer, but also prevent any further tragedies. The company has said that the account was flagged by systems, as you say, that identify, quote, misuses of your models in furtherance of violent activities. But the issues apparently did not meet its internal criteria for reporting to law enforcement. Are you saying those criteria need to change? Yeah, I'm saying a lot of things about the state of safety in AI right now. First of all, what are the safety protocols that we think are mandatory or important for reporting when there is a threat to public harm?