Donald Trump’s claim that he once had a near-death experience on a helicopter with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown is a lie.
At a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida on Thursday, Trump told a story about how he nearly died during a helicopter ride with Brown, who once briefly dated Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent for president.
“I know Willie Brown very well”, Trump said. “In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought, maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was … a little concerned. So I know him pretty well.”
Trump added that Brown told him “terrible things” about Harris and was “not a fan of hers very much at that point”.
Trump appears to confusing Willie Brown with former California Gov. Jerry Brown. Still, in any case both men told Maggie Haberman of the New York Times that the story is not true.
“Trump’s story about being in a rough helicopter landing with Willie Brown was actually with [former California Governor] Jerry Brown, and there was no rough landing,” Haberman wrote on X. “Everything about the story was false, both men said.”
Brown told the Times that he dated Harris nearly 30 years ago and there are “no hard feelings.”
“You know me well enough to know that if I almost went down in a helicopter with anybody, you would have heard about it!” Brown added.
In an interview with KRON4, a local radio station in San Francisco, Brown added: “I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that. And secondly, I don’t think I’d want to ride on the same helicopter with him. There’s too many people that have an agenda with reference to him, including the people who service helicopters!”
Jerry Brown, who was on the helicopter with Trump said the flight was pretty uneventful.
“There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris,” Brown said in a statement through a spokesperson.
The flight in question is believed to be in 2018 when Trump visited California during the wildfires. Gavin Newsom was also on that helicopter ride as the governor-elect.
“I call complete BS,” Newsom told the Times.
He said Trump was the one who repeatedly bring up the subject of crashing and that “we talked about everyone else, but not Kamala.”
