Donald Trump pushed a story about an “emergency” helicopter landing that several Democrats swiftly shut down following the former president’s wild, false claim-laden news conference Thursday.
The Republican nominee, when asked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ past relationship with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, said he knew Brown “very well” before launching into a story about going “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,” claimed Trump as he spoke to reporters in the rambling presser at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
He continued, “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned. So I know him, I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years.”
Brown, a longtime top Democrat in California, was once on a helicopter without Trump when it made a “harrowing emergency landing” in 2004.
But — as he told the San Francisco Chronicle as well as CNN on Thursday — he never had such an experience with the former president, whom he called “obviously wrong.”
“You would have known if I had gone down on a helicopter with Trump,” Brown told the Chronicle as he also disputed Trump’s claim that he trashed Harris, who he dated for roughly one year. “I’ve never been on a helicopter with Trump.”
Brown told San Francisco’s KRON-TV that the Republican nominee was doing what he does best with his “fictional” creativity.
Trump appears to have been confusing the former San Francisco mayor’s name with former California Gov. Jerry Brown, NBC News noted.
Jerry Brown and the state’s then-incoming governor, Gavin Newsom, shared a helicopter with Trump in 2018 as they toured wildfire damage in the state.
The former California governor’s spokesperson told the New York Times that there was no emergency landing and no discussion of Harris, while Newsom said the aircraft “didn’t go down.”
“I call complete B.S.,” Newsom said of the helicopter tale.
