Trump’s story about harrowing helicopter flight and emergency landing didn’t happen, Willie Brown claims

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former President Donald Trump confounded two prominent California politicians when he told a harrowing story of a helicopter that nearly ran him over.

During a winding press conference Thursday riddled with false and misleading statementsTrump recalled being a passenger in the helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown when it was forced to make an emergency landing. The comments came in response to a question about Brown’s relationship with Vice President Kamala Harris three decades ago.

But Brown never shared a helicopter with Trump, the former mayor said. Instead, it was former California Gov. Jerry Brown who traveled with Trump in a helicopter in 2018. to assess the damage caused by forest firesand no emergency landings were reported.

“I know Willie Brown very well,” Mr. Trump said of the alleged incident. “I actually went down in a helicopter with him. We thought that might be the end of it.”

He continued: “We were in a helicopter, on our way to a certain location, and there was an emergency landing. It was not a pleasant landing.”

Trump said Brown also told him “terrible things” about Harris. “He wasn’t really a fan of her at that point.”

But Brown told the San Francisco Chronicle he had never been in a helicopter with Trump.

“You would have known if I had gone down in a helicopter with Trump,” Brown told the newspaper.

The longtime Democratic politician said he never disparaged Harris to Trump either.

“Of course not,” Brown replied. “I wouldn’t say anything bad to him about any woman.”

Former California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, and Trump did travel by helicopter to survey wildfire damage in 2018. But no problems were reported during the flight.

Current Gov. Gavin Newsom was also on the plane. A spokesman for the Democrat, Izzy Gardon, said Friday that there were no problems with the flight, no emergency landings and no conversations about Harris.

Both Browns have decades-long public service careers in California. Willie Brown, 90, is black. Jerry Brown, 86, is white.

Willie Brown’s long-standing relationship with Harris has resurfaced since she became the Democratic nominee for the White House. Now that Trump is facing her in his bid for a second term, he and other Republicans have used that relationship to lobbed attacks suggesting that Harris has not legitimately earned her political positions.

Brown was speaker of the California State Assembly in the 1990s when he and Harris were a couple. Brown separated from his wife in 1982.

Harris, 59, spent years as a prosecutor in the Bay Area before being appointed state attorney general in 2010 and then elected U.S. senator in 2016. She has been married to Doug Emhoff since 2014.

Trump campaign spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt declined to explain the discrepancies in Trump’s story when asked about it Friday on Newsmax.

“I refer you to President Trump’s statement and what he said yesterday,” Leavitt said. “The president has a lot of incredible stories to tell in his life.”