Former President Donald Trump on Thursday appeared to confuse former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown with former California Gov. Jerry Brown in recounting what he characterized as a near-death experience.
During a news conference from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump said he once flew with Willie Brown in a helicopter that “went down” when he was asked about Vice President Kamala Harris’ past relationship with the former mayor and whether he thought the relationship had played a role in her career path.
“In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. We were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing. This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned,” Trump said. “So I know him. I know him pretty well.”
In an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle after the news conference, Willie Brown, who dated Harris years ago in San Francisco, denied multiple aspects of Trump’s account.
“You would have known if I had gone down on a helicopter with Trump,” he said, according to the newspaper. “I’ve never been on a helicopter with Trump.”
In 2018, Trump was in a helicopter with Jerry Brown and his successor, then Gov.-elect Gavin Newsom, on the day they toured Paradise, California, a town that had been ravaged by wildfires.
A representative for Jerry Brown didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday night. A spokesperson for Newsom confirmed to NBC News that Newsom was aboard the helicopter but said that there was no emergency landing and that they had not been endangered. The governor first denied Trump’s account in comments to The New York Times.
During Thursday’s news conference, Trump also claimed that Willie Brown told him “terrible things about” Harris and that Brown was “not a fan of hers very much at that point.”
Brown disputed having spoken poorly about Harris in remarks to the Chronicle.
“No, not accurate at all,” he told the newspaper.
Willie Brown didn’t respond to requests for comment from NBC News.
Reached for comment by NBC News, Steven Cheung, a Trump campaign spokesperson, didn’t address questions about whether Trump had confused the two California Democrats, responding, “Slick Willie has told some interesting stories about Kamala Harris.”
