The person who virtually crashed in a helicopter with Donald Trump advised POLITICO Trump confused him with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown — regardless of the previous president’s repeated insistence it was Brown.
It was Nate Holden, a former metropolis councilmember and state senator from Los Angeles, who stated in an unique interview late Friday that he remembers the near-death expertise properly. He and others consider it occurred someday in 1990.
“Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco,” Holden stated. “I’m a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.”
“I guess we all look alike,” Holden advised POLITICO, letting out a loud giggle.
Holden, who’s 95 years previous, was in contact with Trump and his staff in the course of the Nineties when the flamboyant Manhattan developer was making an attempt to construct on the location of the historic Ambassador Lodge in Los Angeles. Holden represented the district on the time and supported the undertaking.
Within the interview, Holden stated he was watching Trump’s press convention on Thursday when the previous president claimed that Brown was aboard in the course of the white-knuckle helicopter journey.
In actual fact, Holden says he met Trump at Trump Tower, en path to Atlantic Metropolis, New Jersey, the place they had been going to tour the developer’s model new Taj Mahal on line casino. Within the foyer at Trump Tower, Holden says he was greeted by a number of individuals as “senator,” salutations that miffed the host.
“He said, ‘You know I own this building but nobody seems to know who I am,’” Holden remembered the mogul saying.
Holden recalled being a bit nervous concerning the helicopter journey as a result of it got here not lengthy after 5 individuals, together with three high-level executives of Trump’s casinos, had been killed when their chopper crashed in 1989 over Forked River, New Jersey.
However Holden says Trump advised him they had been in good palms, noting that he had two succesful pilots. “He tells me to ‘look at the sky,’” Holden stated. “‘Oh my God, it’s so beautiful.’”
Additionally aboard was Trump’s late brother, Robert, the legal professional Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump’s former govt vp of development and growth. Res advised POLITICO on Friday that she additionally remembers the journey properly. In actual fact, she stated she wrote about it in her ebook, “All Alone on the 68th Floor.”
Res remembers Brown, too. He took a liking to her, and he or she introduced him a hat from the superyacht the Trump Princess, which she says he beloved. However the man on the helicopter was undoubtedly Nate Holden, she stated.
On that journey, she stated the pilots began feverishly maneuvering the tools because the chopper lurched over the water. “From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might,” Res wrote in her ebook. Donald Trump and Robert Trump had been reassuring Holden.
“Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing,” she wrote. “By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.”
After appreciable turbulence, they landed safely in New Jersey at an airport the place Trump had his commuter helicopters saved.
Inside an hour, they had been in Atlantic Metropolis. Holden and Res had a pleasant lunch on the on line casino courtesy of Trump and went again to New York. “We may not have gotten much business done, but it sure as hell was memorable,” she wrote.
Over the cellphone Friday, Res stated Trump preferred to inform a joke about Holden on the helicopter — “you turned white,” he stated. However she stated it was Trump’s face that was white.
“He was white as snow,” Holden added. “And he was scared shitless.”
When requested for remark, a Trump marketing campaign spokesperson simply referred to a paragraph in a New York Instances article concerning the incident.
“[Trump] has also told the helicopter story before, in his 2023 book, ‘Letters to Trump,’ in which he published letters to him from a number of people, including Mr. Brown. In the book, Mr. Trump wrote, ‘We actually had an emergency landing in a helicopter together. It was a little scary for both of us, but thankfully we made it.’”
Res and Holden spoke on the cellphone Friday night time. They often reminisce concerning the Ambassador undertaking that might have been.
“That’s the story, OK,” Res stated. “No Willie Brown.”
Holden additionally related with Brown on Thursday. “I said, ‘Willie, were you almost in a helicopter crash with Trump also?’ He said ‘No.’ I said, ‘I was the one, Willie.’”
Earlier than he hung up with POLITICO, Holden assured a reporter that no one mentioned — not to mention criticized — Kamala Harris as Trump claimed Brown did.
“He either mixed it up,” Holden stated. “Or, he made it up. This was just too big to overlook. This is a big one. Conflating Willie Brown and me? The press is searching for the real story and they didn’t get it. You did.”
