Even though Trump claimed it was former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown on Friday, former California state senator and Los Angeles city councilman Nate Holden confirmed that he was actually aboard the chopper with Trump during the emergency landing.
Holden commented on Willie, the short Black man from San Francisco, in an interview he gave to Politico late Friday night. “I reside in Los Angeles; I am a tall Black man.”
Adding, “I suppose we all look alike,” he continued.
In a phone interview with AWN, Brown later refuted Trump’s story, calling it “obviously wrong,” after the president informed reporters assembled at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida that he and Brown were involved in an emergency landing involving a helicopter. “I’ve never done anything in my life that involved a helicopter with him,” Brown remarked.
On Thursday, Trump made reference to the episode, saying that he had experienced it with Brown before. According to the former president’s memoir, “Letters to Trump,” the incident was “a little scary for both of us.” On Saturday, X contributor and Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung brought that to light.
According to Politico, Holden stated that he had communication with Trump’s staff in the 1990s, when Trump was attempting to construct a hotel on the site where the Ambassador Hotel stood in Holden’s district in Los Angeles.
According to Holden, Trump and he met at Trump Tower before heading to Atlantic City, New Jersey, to see the Taj Mahal casino, which Trump had already announced would be closing. The former executive vice president of construction under Trump, Barbara Res, was also on board. Res confirmed to Politico that the man in the helicopter was unmistakably Holden.
The pilot had warned that an emergency landing was necessary, but Res described the incident in her book “All Alone on the 68th Floor,” in which she stated that the helicopter touched down safely in New Jersey. Holden told Politico that Trump was the one who was “scared sh*tless,” and she recalled that Trump had joked about Holden being scared on the plane.