Trump is accused of confusing one black man for another and cracking shocking joke about associate’s dark skin in bombshell new claims about ‘near-death’ helicopter flight
Donald Trump mistook one black man for another in his controversial story about a near-helicopter crash, and allegedly made a shocking joke about dark skin.
Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles city councilman, believes Trump thinks of him when he takes a helicopter ride with Trump around 1990, which allegedly gives him a “near-death experience.”
Earlier this week, Trump said he nearly crashed while in a helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. Brown says he has never met the former president.
Holden, 95, had a relationship with Trump in the 1990s when he was building on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, which was in his district.
The former councilman — who had a photo of himself with Trump and ex-wife Ivana on his website – says Trump and Holden took a helicopter ride, which made Trump think ‘maybe this is the end,’ but he thinks he’s confusing him with another black politician.
“Willie is the short black man who lives in San Francisco. I’m a tall black man who lives in Los Angeles. I think we all look alike,” Holden said with a laugh after hearing Trump’s claims during his press conference on Thursday.
Donald Trump mistook one black man for another in his controversial helicopter near-miss story — and made a shocking joke about dark skin, it’s claimed
Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles city councilman, believes Trump is thinking of him, as he traveled with Trump in a helicopter around 1990 to what he describes as a “near-death experience.”
Holden told Politics that he met Trump more than 30 years ago near Atlantic City, during a tour of his Taj Mahal Casino.
He flew with Trump, his late brother Robert, attorney Robert Freedman and former Trump Organization director Barbara Res.
Res now said that she, too, remembered the near-disastrous ride and wrote about it in her memoirs.
She said she had met Brown, the former San Francisco mayor and California Assembly speaker who dated Kamala Harris decades ago, but that the man in the helicopter was Holden.
“That’s the story, okay,” she said. “No, Willie Brown.”
Res added that Trump made a joke about Holden’s skin color at the time of the crash, telling him, “You turned white.”
Holden, however, says this would be a better description of the former president at the time.
“He was white as snow,” he said. “And he was scared to death.”
Barbara Res, a former executive at the Trump Organization, says she shot Willie Brown (pictured) but remembered the man was in the helicopter with her Holden
Holden (pictured left) told Politico that he met Trump near Atlantic City more than 30 years ago to tour his Taj Mahal Casino
Holden said he was in touch with Brown on Thursday after Trump’s press conference.
“I said, ‘Willie, were you almost in a helicopter crash with Trump?’ He said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I was the one, Willie.’
While he joked that Trump was confusing himself with Brown, Holden didn’t seem to mind Trump’s story, wondering what happened at that point.
“He mixed it up or made it up,” Holden said. “This was just too big to ignore. This is a big one. Mixing Willie Brown and me up? The press is looking for the real story and they didn’t get it.”
A Trump spokesperson pointed out that Trump had written about the incident — reportedly involving Brown — in his 2023 book.
Trump faced criticism over the misremembered story when reporters confronted him about the issue and asked him for proof.
In an “angry” phone call with The New York Times, Trump reportedly criticized the newspaper for claims he lied about a near-miss during a helicopter ride with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
NYT journalist Maggie Haberman, the paper’s chief political reporter and reportedly a sympathetic ear for Trump, said Trump angrily continued to insist he could provide evidence of the near-death experience.
Donald Trump ridiculed a reporter when he asked for documents about a helicopter flight he said he took with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown
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
Trump insisted his people “have the flight records of the helicopter,” the Times reported, and said he “will probably sue” the newspaper.
When the reporter asked to see the documents, Trump responded, Haberman said, “scoffing and repeating the request in a sing-song tone.”
Haberman added that Trump has not yet provided such data, which Trump said proves the helicopter landed “in a field.”
Trump told the 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, on our way to a certain location, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing.”
A biography of Harris alleges that Trump sent his private jet to fly Brown and Harris from Boston to New York in 1994, when the two were still in a relationship.
However, according to Brown, he and Trump were never in the same helicopter and he was instead engaged in his best “creative fiction.”
Republican presidential candidate Trump told reporters at a news conference at Mar-A-Lago on Thursday night that he and Brown (pictured) were in a helicopter that had to make an emergency landing and that both men thought it “might be the end”
“I’ve never done business with Donald Trump, let’s start with that,” Brown — who dated Kamala Harris in 1994 and 1995 — said CROWN4.
“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!”
“He did what Donald does best, which is his creative fiction. He’s creative, really creative. It’s so far-fetched, it’s unbelievable.”
Brown went on to say that the world “would have known” if it had happened.
The Times suspects Trump was referring to the time he flew a helicopter through wildfire-ravaged California with then-Governor Jerry Brown in 2018. However, the newspaper said Trump was not confusing him with Willie Brown.
Jerry Brown also stressed that there was no danger during the flight.
“There was no emergency landing and there was no talk about Kamala Harris,” Jerry Brown’s spokesman told the NYT.
Meanwhile, California Governor Gavin Newsom, who was in the helicopter with Trump and Jerry Brown, said after the press conference: ‘I call complete bullshit’
The Times suspects Trump was referring to the time he flew a helicopter through wildfire-ravaged California with then-Governor Jerry Brown in 2018, but he insists he is not confusing him with Willie Brown.
Trump gave his story in response to a reporter’s question about the relationship between Harris and Brown.
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 telling the helicopter story, Trump claimed that Brown had some negative things to say about the current vice president.
“But he had a big part in what happened to Kamala. But he – I don’t know, maybe he changed his tune. But he wasn’t a big fan of hers at the time.”
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.