Maine Writer

Its about people and issues I care about.

My Photo
Name:
Location: Topsham, MAINE, United States

My blogs are dedicated to the issues I care about. Thank you to all who take the time to read something I've written.

Friday, August 09, 2024

Trump opens his mouth and lies spew out like uncapped geizeer! What helicopter?

Echo report published in The New York Times, by Heather Knight and Shawn Hubler,
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/us/politics/trump-helicopter-willie-brown.html

Former guy Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story during a press conference in Mar-A-Lago, on Thursday August 7th, where he lied about nearly dying in a helicopter ride with Willie Brown, the former California politician and ex-boyfriend of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris.

There was only one problem with the story. Or maybe two. Or maybe three.

It wasn’t the famous former San Francisco mayor on the helicopter flight at all. Trump was obviously confused. Rather, the person was really Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown.

There was also no emergency landing, and the helicopter’s passengers were never in any danger at all, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was also on the flight.

Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”

In November 2018, President Donald J. Trump and Gov. Jerry Brown of California visiting a neighborhood destroyed by a wildfire in Paradise, Calif. Mr. Trump and Mr. Brown also viewed the damage by helicopter.Credit...(Tom Brenner for The New York Times)

“I call it complete B.S.,” Mr. Newsom said, laughing out loud.

Trump’s errant account, delivered during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, came in response to a reporter who asked a leading question about Ms. Harris’s past relationship with Willie Brown, and whether Mr. Trump thought it might have had something to do with her career trajectory.

The two dated in 1994 and 1995, while she was a prosecutor in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, and he was the speaker of the California State Assembly, and he appointed her to two state boards. He was — and still is — married to Blanche Brown, but they have long lived separate lives.

“Well, I know Willie Brown very well,” Trump responded. “In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him.”

He went on to tell a cinematic tale of a close call with death — and of politically advantageous gossip on death’s door:

“We thought maybe this was the end,” Trump said. “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 continued. “So I know him, but I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about her. But this is what you’re telling me, anyway, I guess. But he had a big part in what happened with Kamala. But he — he, I don’t know, maybe he’s changed his tune. But he — he was not a fan of hers very much, at that point.”

Reached on his cellphone just after Trump’s news conference — at his regular lunch spot at Sam’s Grill in downtown San Francisco — Mr. Brown, 90, said the whole story was false. He had never ridden in a helicopter with Trump, he said. He had never nearly perished in any helicopter ride. And he remained an avid supporter of Ms. Harris’s.

Mr. Brown, who loves regaling anybody who will listen with stories and who penned a weekly column in The San Francisco Chronicle until 2021, added, laughing: “You know me well enough to know that if I almost went down in a helicopter with anybody, you would have heard about it!”  
Ms. Harris ended their relationship nearly three decades ago, but Mr. Brown said he had always been a big fan and supporter of hers. “No hard feelings,” he said.

The helicopter ride that Trump took in 2018, with Gov. Jerry Brown, 86, and with Mr. Newsom, then the governor-elect of California, was to survey damage wrought by the deadly Camp Fire in the town of Paradise, in the Sierra Nevada foothills north of Sacramento.

Mr. Newsom’s recollection of the occasion was vivid.

“I was on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down,” Mr. Newsom, 56, said in an interview. He said that Trump had, however, repeatedly brought up the possibility of crashing.

The subject of Ms. Harris, with whom Mr. Newsom had enjoyed a friendly rivalry, did not come up on the helicopter, he added. “We talked about everyone else, but not Kamala,” he said with a laugh.

Mr. Newsom called Trump’s news conference “an act of desperation” prompted by what he called Ms. Harris’s momentum.

Mr. Trump’s visit to the burned forest with then-Governor Brown and Mr. Newsom did generate headlines, but not because of anything that occurred on their helicopter ride. Rather, it was because, during a news conference after landing at the scene, Trump, 78, attributed the wildfire to too many fallen, dead tree branches and said the answer to solving California’s wildfire crisis was to rake the forest floors.

“It was back when we were making raking the forest great again,” Mr. Newsom said.


Labels: , , , ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home