Ever since Donald Trump said Thursday that Willie Brown had bashed Vice President Kamala Harris years ago during a scary helicopter ride together, the former president has insisted that the story is true. This despite the fact that Brown, the former California Speaker, said he had never done business with Trump, let alone been on a flight with him.
But it turns out that another California official had.
In an interview Saturday, Nate Holden, the former longtime Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, recalled vividly what happened one day in 1990 when he had been invited by Trump to fly from Manhattan to Atlantic City on his chopper.
It was midday, Holden said, and he had just been served a drink when all of a sudden the hydraulic system failed, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in New Jersey.
On Thursday, Trump said in impromptu remarks to the press that he and Brown “were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing.” Trump said: “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie, he was — he was a little concerned. So I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about [Harris].”
Holden, 95, was incredulous that Trump could confuse the two men — “the short Black guy from Northern California and the tall Black guy from Southern California. But as they say, we all look the same,” he said with a laugh.
The Trump campaign hasn’t commented about what seems at best a mistaken identity, and worse, a fabricated story meant to discredit Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.
After Brown denied that he had never gotten on a helicopter with Trump, the national and international media have been all over the story. And Trump has not only stuck by his statements but posted on social media that he had evidence in “logs, maintenance records, and witnesses” to back up his account.
But another person on that helicopter ride was Barbara Res, once a top executive in charge of construction and development at the Trump Organization. In her 2013 book, “All Alone on the 68th Floor,” Res essentially corroborates Holden’s account of what happened.
“As we pulled out over the Hudson, the helicopter began to shake,” she wrote. “Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing. By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy. Donald loves to tell the story that Nate, an African American, turned white, but as I recall Donald was pretty white himself.”
Holden said Saturday that he called Brown shortly after seeing Trump’s comments about the helicopter incident on television. “I just thought Donald Trump’s got a problem. He had almost two fatal accidents, one with Willie Brown and one with me,” Holden said. So he asked Brown: “Willie, were you in a helicopter with Trump which almost crashed?”
Holden was in the copter with Trump to discuss the Manhattan developer’s desire to build on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in the Los Angeles Mid-Wilshire District. Holden represented the district at the time.
Trump “wanted to meet with Nate because Nate was very, very influential,” Res said in an interview, noting that she brought Holden to New York. “And when we were going for the meeting, Donald said, ‘I can’t, I have to go to Atlantic City. Let’s have our meeting on the helicopter.” (Trump’s project on that Wilshire site got entangled in litigation and never came together.)
Holden said that he knew Trump was trying to impress him. On board, Holden recalled, “Trump said, ‘Look at the skyline. It’s the best in the world.’ ”
But Holden wasn’t impressed, and said he was livid when the aircraft had mechanical problems. “I couldn’t believe they didn’t maintain their helicopter. I was raising hell because they put my life in jeopardy.” Only a year earlier, in 1989, three executives of Trump’s casinos were killed, along with two others when a chopper crashed over Fork River in New Jersey.
As for Trump, Holden said, “He was speechless. He turned white as snow, glued to his seat.”
“There was no hint of any real danger that I perceived,” Res said. “Trump was terrified. He was scared s—less,” Res said. “He just lost three executives on the flight that he said he was scheduled to be on, which of course he was never scheduled to be on that flight. But, you know, why not make use of three dead good employees.”
In a similar way, both Res and Holden said Trump told his own version of what happened on the helicopter with Holden.
“Trump knew Willie Brown was the speak of the Assembly and Nate Holden was a councilman, and so he wanted to make it more important,” Res said. “Also, he wanted to include a comment about Harris and I don’t think you could make a connection between Harris and Holden.”
Said Holden: “It makes the story more juicy.”