California Governor Gavin Newsom called “BS” after former President Donald Trump claimed he was in a helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown that nearly crashed. Brown also said that never happened.
Trump told the dubious story in response to a question during his news conference at his Mar-a-Lago home in Florida on Thursday.
‘“I know Willie Brown very well. I even went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “We were in a helicopter, going to a certain location, and there was an emergency landing. It was not a pleasant landing.”
But the problem is, Brown said they’ve never been in a helicopter together. He called it Trump’s “creative fiction.”
“I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that,” Brown told local TV station KRON4 on Thursday.
“And secondly, I don’t think I would want to fly in the same helicopter with him. There are too many people who have an agenda regarding him, including the people who maintain helicopters.”
Former President Donald Trump claimed during his August 8 press conference that he was in a helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown that nearly crashed, but Brown and Newsom both said that never happened
It has been suggested that the 78-year-old former president may have confused former Mayor Brown with former California Governor Jerry Brown, even though the two former California leaders have little in common other than their last names.
Governor Brown resigned in 2019. He and Trump once shared a helicopter to survey wildfire damage, but an emergency landing was never made.
“Absolute nonsense,” Newsom told The New York Times.
Newsom, then governor-elect, was also on Trump and Brown’s flight in 2018. The trio were scheduled to view damage in Paradise, California, north of Sacramento, while Trump was still in office.
The helicopter was never in danger of crashing and Newsom said Harris was not a topic of conversation.
“We were talking about everyone, but not Kamala,” Newsom recalled.
Former Mayor Willie Brown said he was never in a helicopter with former President Trump, but the ex-president did fly in a helicopter with former California Gov. Jerry Brown in 2018. That helicopter did not have an emergency landing
Gavin Newsom (left) with then-President Trump and then-Governor Jerry Brown (right) surveying the 2018 wildfire damage in Paradise, CA. Newsom called “BS” on Trump’s story about being in a helicopter that “crashed” with Willie Brown. It was suggested that the ex-president was confusing the former mayor with the former governor, but Newsom called “BS” on the story
Trump brought up the helicopter story in response to a reporter’s question about Harris’ relationship with former Mayor Brown and whether he believed it had anything to do with her career path.
Brown and Harris dated in the mid-1990s, when Brown was speaker of the California State Assembly and Harris was a prosecutor in the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office. During that time, Brown appointed her to two boards.
After claiming that their helicopter nearly crashed, Trump continued: “I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me horrible things about her, but this is what you tell me, I guess, but he had a huge part in what happened to Kamala.”
The former president suggested that Brown may have “changed his stance,” but that he “wasn’t a big fan of hers at the time.”
Kamala Harris with Willie Brown, whom she dated in the mid-1990s when he was speaker of the state Assembly and she was Alameda County district attorney
Brown, now 90, also disputed that aspect of Trump’s claim on Thursday, calling it “so far-fetched, it’s unbelievable.”
“I couldn’t imagine looking at Kamala Harris in a negative way. She’s a dear friend from a long time ago, an absolutely beautiful woman, smart as hell, very successful, electorally,” Brown said.