Trump was in an emergency landing in 1990, just with another politician
Yesterday, as part of a long post on Trump’s recent press conference, I highlighted one of the more bizarre moments from it: Trump recounting a rough helicopter flight with San Francisco mayor Willie Brown. As Trump told the story, the two were in a helicopter together, and it had to make an emergency landing. The reason Trump told this story was to share that during that ride, Brown told him “terrible things” about Vice President Kamala Harris.
Willie Brown denied ever flying in a helicopter with Trump. And definitely not one that was forced to make an emergency landing. Journalists looking into the incident suggested Trump might have been drawing on a memory of a helicopter flight Trump took as President with California Governor Jerry Brown.
Meanwhile the former President apparently was irate that anyone would question his memory and decided to call reporters from the New York Times to threaten them with a lawsuit.
“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article.
When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.
Now, it appears that Donald Trump did experience an emergency landing in a helicopter. And there was a California politician aboard at the time. Except it was Nate Holden, a former city council member and state senator from Los Angeles. More from a Politico article:
“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.