Trump sticks to tale of scary helicopter ride, despite denials

By James Oliphant and Alexandra Ulmer

(Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Friday insisted he was in a near-fatal helicopter ride with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, although Brown said the incident never happened and another politician said he had been on a similar flight with Trump decades earlier.

Trump on Thursday related the tale of almost dying on a helicopter with Brown, who had briefly dated Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris several decades ago.

“I went down in a helicopter with him,” Trump said in a rambling press conference. “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, he was a little concerned.”

Trump also asserted Willie Brown told him “terrible things” about Harris.

Brown, a longtime Democratic power broker who also served as speaker of the California State Assembly, told the San Francisco Chronicle after Trump’s press conference that he was never in a helicopter with the former president. He also denied that he had ever said anything disparaging about Harris to Trump.

Another Black former California politician, Nate Holden, told Politico late on Friday that he had been in a turbulent helicopter ride with Trump in New Jersey, likely in 1990.

Earlier on Friday, Trump had dug in, insisting in posts on his Truth Social platform that his helicopter ride had been with Willie Brown and that it had occurred in New Jersey, not California.

“There were “Logs,” Maintenance Records, and Witnesses. There was also a story on “Willie and Me,” Trump said.

He did not provide any of the evidence he referred to in the post.

Asked to share the evidence Trump mentioned, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung referred Reuters to a post of his on X of a picture from a page in the 2023 “Letters to Trump” book. It contains a picture of Trump and Willie Brown, and quotes Trump as saying: “We actually had an emergency landing in a helicopter together.”

Asked about Holden’s account of being in a helicopter with Trump, Cheung said: “Sounds like Holden is either lying or is having memory issues.”

Holden, a former city councilman and state senator from Los Angeles, scoffed at Trump’s account, Politico reported.

“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden was quoted as saying. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles. I guess we all look alike.”

Holden added that Harris was not brought up during the helicopter ride. “He either mixed it up. Or, he made it up,” Holden said of Trump.

Holden did not immediately respond to an e-mail request for comment.

As president in 2018, Trump also toured fire-ravaged portions of California by helicopter with then-California Governor Jerry Brown, NBC News reported. A representative for former Governor Brown, who is white, told the New York Times there was no emergency landing and Harris was not discussed during that flight.

Trump said he would “probably” sue the New York Times over its coverage of his comments on the helicopter story, according to a Times story on Friday. Trump disparaged the newspaper on Truth Social, attacking its reporter Maggie Haberman as “Maggot Hagermann.”

The Times did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Harris campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the apparent mix-up.

When 81-year-old President Joe Biden was still the Democratic candidate in the Nov. 5 election, Trump, 78, frequently mocked his opponent’s mental acuity and offered to take a cognitive test, arguing Biden was too infirm to be president.

Biden has since been replaced atop the ticket by the 59-year-old Harris, forcing Trump to scramble to find new lines of attack.

Republicans have insinuated that Willie Brown is in part responsible for Harris’ rise in politics, although the two broke up in the mid-1990s and Harris did not win her first election until 2002. While the two were dating, Brown appointed Harris, then a young prosecutor, to two well-paying jobs on state boards.