Trump’s scary helicopter trip did not happen, says ex-mayor
San Francisco’s former mayor, Willie Brown, has dismissed Donald Trump’s account of a frightening helicopter ride they allegedly shared as “fiction.”
Trump claimed on Thursday that he and Brown had experienced a perilous helicopter journey, where they “thought maybe this was the end,” due to an emergency landing. Trump described the experience as “not a pleasant landing” and suggested he might take legal action to defend his story in a call to the New York Times.
However, Brown, who is 90, refuted the claim, stating that he never rode in a helicopter with Trump and expressed that he would not want to. It seems Trump may have confused Brown with Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, with whom he took a helicopter ride in 2018 to survey the aftermath of the Paradise wildfires. Gavin Newsom, the current governor, was also on that flight.
Both men told US media there had been no emergency landing or danger. “I call complete BS,” Mr Newsom told The New York Times.
Trump told his story in response to a question about Willie Brown’s relationship with Kamala Harris, 59, in the mid-1990s while she was a California prosecutor.
Trump was asked whether he thought the relationship had played a role in Ms Harris’s career journey.
“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump said, before speaking of the flight and claiming the former mayor had told him “terrible things” about Ms Harris.
“He had a big part in what happened with Kamala,” Trump said.
The former mayor also denied this.
“That’s so far-fetched, it’s unbelievable,” he told local TV station KRON. “I could not envision thinking of Kamala Harris in any negative way.
“She’s a good friend a long time ago, absolutely beautiful woman, smart as all hell, very successful, electorally speaking.
“He was doing what Donald does best, his creative fiction.”
A spokesperson for Jerry Brown also told US media that the former governor had not discussed Ms Harris on the helicopter flight in 2018.
Trump’s remarks at an hour-long news conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate come as a recent national poll shows Ms Harris is beating him among likely voters.
The two have visited a number of battleground states this week alongside their vice-presidential candidates to speak to voters.
