Former President Donald Trump on Thursday told a stunning story about how he nearly died during a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.
There was only one problem with the story. Or maybe two. Or maybe three.
It wasn’t the famous former mayor of San Francisco on the helicopter ride at all. It was Governor Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown.
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There was also no emergency landing and the helicopter’s passengers were never in any danger, said Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on board.
Jerry Brown, who resigned in January 2019, said through a spokesman: “There was no emergency landing and there was no discussion about Kamala Harris.”
“I call it complete nonsense,” Newsom said, laughing out loud.
Trump’s false story, which he made during a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, was in response to a pointed question from a reporter about Harris’ previous relationship with Willie Brown and whether Trump thought it might have had anything to do with her career path.
Harris and Brown dated in 1994 and 1995, when she was district attorney in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, and he was speaker of the California State Assembly, and he appointed her to two state assembly seats. He was — and remains — married to Blanche Brown, but they lived apart for many years.
“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump replied. “I even went down in a helicopter with him.”
He then told a cinematic story about a predicament with death, and about politically advantageous gossip about death.
“We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “We were in a helicopter, going to a certain location, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.
“And Willie was — he was a little concerned. So I know him, but I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me, I guess. But he played a big part in what happened to Kamala. But he — he, I don’t know, maybe he changed his tune. But he — he wasn’t a big fan of hers at the time.”
Willie Brown, 90, got a call on his cell phone just after Trump’s press conference — at his usual lunch spot, Sam’s Grill in downtown San Francisco — and said the whole story wasn’t true. He had never been in a helicopter with Trump, he said. He had never nearly died in a helicopter ride. And he remained a staunch Harris supporter.
Brown, who loves to regale anyone who will listen with stories and who wrote a weekly column in the San Francisco Chronicle until 2021, added with a laugh: “You know me well enough to know that if I had almost crashed in a helicopter with someone, you would have heard about it!”
Harris ended their relationship nearly three decades ago, but Brown said he had always been a huge fan and supporter of hers. “No hard feelings,” he said.
Trump’s 2018 helicopter flight with Gov. Jerry Brown and Newsom, then the governor-elect of California, was to survey the damage caused by the deadly Camp fire in the town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento.
Newsom could still vividly remember the event.
“I was in a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t crash,” Newsom said in an interview, adding that Trump had repeatedly raised the possibility of a crash.
The subject of Harris, with whom Newsom had a friendly rivalry, did not come up during the plane ride, he added. “We talked about everybody, but not Kamala,” he said, laughing.
Newsom called Trump’s press conference “an act of desperation,” prompted by what he called Harris’ momentum.
Trump’s visit to the burned forest with Brown and Newsom did make headlines, but not because of anything that happened during their helicopter flight. Rather, it was because Trump, during a press conference after landing at the scene, attributed the wildfire to too many fallen, dead tree limbs and said the solution to California’s wildfire crisis was to rake the forest floors.
“That’s when we made raking the woods great again,” Newsom said.
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