Barry Soper: Jacinda Ardern's meteoric rise culminates with Donald Trump meeting

Never has a modern-day politician had such a charmed path into leadership.

COMMENT: It's incredible to think that when John Key was stitching together his first coalition government in 2008, Jacinda Ardern was for the first time just getting her feet under a list MP's desk.

She was very much in the background for the next eight years - but all that changed when the former Labour leader David Shearer decided to call it quits and vacate Helen Clark's old Mt Albert stronghold.

Little did Ardern probably realise at the time but she was on her way, gifted the seat in election year. Then Annette King offered to stand aside to let her slip into Labour's deputy leadership - and the rest is history, along with Andrew Little who realised he couldn't win the election and moved aside for her, even if she tells us she was reluctant to step up.

Never has a modern-day politician had such a charmed path into leadership in this country: but there's surely been times over the past two years (yes it's two years since the election) that she must have wondered whether it was all worth it.

Ardern's meteoric rise to the top sees her today in New York meeting Donald Trump, who she protested against on the day he was inaugurated in January 2017.

She's publicly, mildly admonished him over the past couple of years and we know he's a sensitive soul, which is probably why her meeting with him this morning might have been touted by the Beehive as a "bilateral" but is listed by the American's as a "pull-aside."

Trump has three other "bilateral" meetings after Ardern with Singapore, Egypt and Korea. It's interesting her pull-aside's closed to the media while all the other meetings are open to travelling journos.

So does the status of the meeting actually matter? It certainly sends a diplomatic signal, with The Washington Post once describing a pull-aside as the lowest level presidential meeting where he breaks away from a larger meeting for a few minutes of private time with a foreign leader.

Contrast that to the state dinner thrown at the White House, the public outings and the joint press conference with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who only got the job last August.

Australia's a fantastic country and a brilliant ally, Trump waxed to Scomo.
Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately, we won't get to hear the President's view of this country.