Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown has dismissed Donald Trump’s story that they once experienced a frightening helicopter ride together as a “fabricated fabrication.”
The former president said on Thursday that he and Mr Brown had “crashed” together in a helicopter and that Mr Brown was “a little worried”.
“We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “We were in a helicopter … and there was an emergency landing. It was not a pleasant landing.”
Brown, 90, told US media he had never shared a helicopter with Trump, adding: “I don’t think I would want to fly in the same helicopter with him.”
Trump, 78, apparently confused Brown with Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, with whom he inspected the aftermath of the Paradise wildfires by helicopter in 2018. Gavin Newsom, the state’s current governor, was also there.
Both men told US media that there was no emergency landing or danger. “That’s complete nonsense,” Newsom told the New York Times.
Trump told his story in response to a question about Willie Brown’s relationship with Kamala Harris, 59, in the mid-1990s when she was a prosecutor in California.
Trump was asked whether he thought the relationship had played a role in Mrs Harris’s career path.
“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump said before discussing the flight and claiming the former mayor had told him “horrible things” about Ms Harris.
“He was a big part of what happened to Kamala,” Trump said.
The former mayor also denied this.
“This is so far-fetched, it’s unbelievable,” he said told the local television station KRON. “I couldn’t imagine thinking about Kamala Harris in any negative way.
“She’s a good friend from a long time ago, an absolutely wonderful woman, smart as hell and very successful electorally.
“He did what Donald does best: creative fiction.”
A spokesman for Jerry Brown also told US media that the former governor did not speak about Mrs Harris on the helicopter flight in 2018.
Trump’s remarks, during an hour-long press conference at his Mar-a-Lago estate, come as a recent national poll shows Mrs Harris doing better than him among likely voters.
The two, along with their vice presidential candidates, visited a number of swing states this week to speak to voters.
