Headlines, tweets, calls, even a threat to file a lawsuit. The story of the “chopper whopper” has been all over the news since Donald Trump’s press conference at Mar-a-Lago last Thursday, and it hasn’t gone away since.
In an attempt to vilify Kamala Harris, or to dramatize for the umpteenth time that he is a miracle survivor of near-death experiences, Donald Trump reported that he “knows Willie Brown very well.” This is the former San Francisco Mayor, now 90, who worked alongside Harris between 1994 and 1995, when she was Alameda County Prosecutor and Mr. Brown was Assembly Speaker. Before they broke up, Brown appointed Harris to two state commissions.
“I went down in a helicopter with him and I thought, maybe this is the end. We were going some place together and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing. Willie was a little worried,” Trump recalled. Then he reiterated that he knows Brown very well, “but I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her [Harris].”
Not dwelling on the criticism about Ms. Harris, newspapers fact checked his story and discovered that Trump had told another lie– a whopper! After the news conference, Brown himself claimed he was never in that helicopter with him. Infuriated, Mr. Trump was so convinced of his tale that he threatened The New York Times to file a lawsuit against the two journalists who had written about it, claiming that he had “logs, maintenance lists and witnesses” as proof.
The episode is in fact true, but the politician with whom Trump had this tragic experience is neither Willie Brown nor Jerry Brown, the California former Governor with whom newspapers initially speculated that the former President was getting confused. Instead, it is Nate Holden, 95, former Los Angeles City Councilman and former State Senator. He confirmed to Politico that, in the 1990s, the helicopter in which he and the tycoon were traveling had been forced to make an emergency landing because of mechanical failures. According to Holden’s report, Trump “has also told the helicopter story before, in his 2023 book, Letters to Trump, in which he published letters to him from a number of people, including Mr. Brown.”
Back in the 90s, Trump had contacted Holden because he wanted to expand and build near the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. They had met at Trump Tower in Manhattan and then headed to his newly opened casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey. On board with them there were two pilots, Robert Trump, attorney Harvey Freedman, and former Trump Vice President for Construction and Development Barbara Res. They had only just taken off when the helicopter began to shake badly and, to avoid a tragedy, they immediately landed.
According to Politico and The New York Times, after Trump’s news conference, Holden called Brown laughing together about the former President’s confusion.
And no, far from what Trump claims, neither of them ever referred to Kamala Harris, much less disparaged her. On the contrary, in response to The New York Times, Brown said “he had not denigrated Ms. Harris to the former President because he admires and respects her.”
