Jon Sopel

Media playback is unsupported on your device

The Las Vegas shootings were Donald Trump's first experience of being consoler-in-chief.

After a man barricaded himself into the Mandalay Bay hotel and over a terrifying 10 minutes opened fire on concertgoers below, killing dozens and injuring hundreds, the president went to Vegas and met families, first responders, medics and the emergency services.

He left on Air Force One later that day feeling the day had gone as well as it could have, given the circumstances. But by the time he got back to Washington, his mood had darkened considerably.

And there were two reasons for it.

For a start, his visit to Vegas was NOT leading the bulletins on cable news channels. But secondly it's what WAS the top story that tipped him over the edge and into a hair-raising (lacquer allowing) rage.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

Every time there's a mass shooting in America there are calls for action to stop it from happening again. But any effort to introduce stricter gun laws always falters in the US Congress - and that's in large part because of the power of the National Rifle Association. Here's a closer look at how they wield that power.

Image copyright Getty Images

It was repeatedly said during the 2016 presidential campaign that the press never really got why Donald Trump was doing so well, summed up in a brilliant sound bite coined by a US journalist, who said that the media took him literally and not seriously, while the American public took him seriously but not literally.

In other words, Trump supporters knew there was boasting and braggadocio. They knew he wouldn't do exactly what he said, but they liked the sentiment, all summed up in his blood and thunder inaugural speech.

Media playback is unsupported on your device

It's not unusual for former political allies to fall out. It happens all the time. But normally it's done in private, and maybe hinted at in public. Not this time. Not with this President.

This is a vicious knife fight between Donald Trump and his former campaign chief and White House Chief strategist being played out across social media.

Image copyright Getty Images

For Roy Moore it looks like the next time he saddles up his horse it will be to ride off into the sunset.

The maverick Christian conservative who enjoyed the full-throated support of Steve Bannon, the slightly-more-tempered endorsement of Donald Trump and the outright antipathy of certain sections of the GOP, has failed in the reddest of red states. So how much should be read into this defeat?

Image copyright Getty Images

This president has played a lot of golf since he won the election. He seems to do a lot of his business on the lush Trump properties - senators are invited to come and play a round while he can bend their ear to back this or that cause.

The way the president does business is not always pretty. There seems to be unnecessary noise and more collateral damage than there needs to be.

Image copyright Getty Images

This week across America, millions of children will be getting ready to go back to school and returning home that evening with their first work assignment - an essay with the title: "What I did on my summer holidays."

Now imagine for a second you're Donald Trump, and you've just been given that piece of homework. I think the first thing you're going to do is ask for a few extra sheets of paper because, what a summer.

Image copyright Getty Images

We'll get to the G20 in a moment. But let's start with organisational psychology. There are some groups or teams that are greater than the sum of their parts, and there are others - that for all the talent and power they may have individually - are less.

Think soccer. Think last year's European Championship. Then tiny little Iceland were the heroes of the competition - and not just because of their wonderful fans.

President Trump has brought to an end weeks of speculation by confirming that he does not have any audio tapes of conversations between him and ex-FBI boss James Comey. So why pretend he did?

Image copyright Getty Images

Just before Donald Trump left Washington to come on this gruelling trip, the word was he would have given anything to get out of it or anything to shorten it.

One, he likes his home comforts - not that Air Force One is exactly slumming it - and two, he knew that all his critics were waiting for him to do something gauche or stupid in some faraway foreign clime.