Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images
Donald Trump, as is his wont, said a lot of crazy things during his Aug. 8 press conference at Mar-a-Lago. He claimed Kamala Harris, a former California attorney general, “couldn’t pass the bar exam” (she failed the first time and passed it a year later). He said he drew a bigger crowd to his Jan. 6, 2021, “Stop the Steal” rally than Martin Luther King Jr. drew to his “I Have a Dream” speech (the crowd at the 1963 March on Washington was about 25 times bigger).
But Trump’s craziest claim was that he almost “crashed in a helicopter” with Willie Brown, in response to a reporter’s question about whether Harris’ relationship with the former San Francisco major had helped her career.
“I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump said. “In fact, I flew with him in a helicopter. We thought maybe this was the end. We were in a helicopter together on our way to a certain location and there was an emergency landing.”
“It wasn’t a pleasant landing, and Willie was a little worried,” Trump continued. “So I know him, I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me horrible things about her… he wasn’t a fan of her at that point.”
This is a crazy story – not because Trump and Brown almost died in a helicopter crash and this is the first time we’ve heard of it, but because it seems completely made up.
The New York Just called Brown after the press conference and he said Trump’s story was completely false:
He said he never flew in a helicopter with Trump. He never nearly died on any helicopter ride. And he remained an enthusiastic supporter of Mrs Harris.
Mr. Brown, who loves to entertain anyone who will listen with stories and who writes a weekly column in the San Francisco chronicle to 2021, adding with a laugh: “You know me well enough to know that if I almost crashed in a helicopter with someone, you would have heard about it!”
Trump did In 2018, he took a helicopter ride with California Governor Jerry Brown and Governor-elect Gavin Newsom to survey the damage from the Camp Fire, the most devastating wildfire in state history. Maybe he was just confused about which California politician he was having a near-death experience with?
That still doesn’t explain it, because Willie Brown and Jerry Brown don’t look alike at all. Here’s a photo of the two men shaking hands in 1998:
Photo: Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Images
And both Jerry Brown and Newsom told the Just that nothing unusual happened during her helicopter flight with Trump in 2018.
“There was no emergency landing and no discussion about Kamala Harris,” the former governor said through a spokesman.
Newsom said essentially the same thing, but in more detail and with a chuckle:
“I think that’s complete nonsense,” Mr. Newsom said, laughing loudly.
… “I was in a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t crash,” Newsom, 56, said in an interview. He said Trump, however, repeatedly mentioned the possibility of a crash.
The subject of Ms. Harris, with whom Mr. Newsom had a friendly rivalry, did not come up on the helicopter, he added. “We talked about everyone else, but not Kamala,” he said, laughing.
The Trump campaign has not provided a plausible explanation for Trump’s story. When CNN asked Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to elaborate, he simply replied, “Slick Willie!” – a nickname for Willie Brown.
It is hard to believe that the president and two governors of California almost died in 2018 and it was not reported at the time – or that Trump always survived a near-death experience and kept quiet about it. The only plausible argument why this wasn’t just a crazy lie came from another Trump opponent, John Bolton. And the former National Security Advisor wasn’t arguing that what Trump says is true, but that he’s so delusional that even he doesn’t know what’s real.
“Trump can’t tell the difference between truth and lies,” Bolton told CNN. “It’s not that he lies a lot, because to lie you have to do it consciously. He just can’t tell the difference. So he makes up what he wants to say at any given time.”
Bolton was actually commenting on another of Trump’s lies at the press conference (that he urged his supporters not to chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton). But Bolton’s insight into his former boss’s psyche helps explain why Trump would tell an outrageous, false story in front of a group of reporters. Who are we to say the helicopter story is a lie if Trump really believes it?
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