Who else but a crazy person would be Make up a story about a catastrophic helicopter emergency landing With a man who wasn’t even there?
If that person is not insane then at least he is delusional.
Confusing perhaps, but equally worrying. What rational mind can’t remember the nuances of falling out of the sky and facing potential death in a helicopter?
I was on board a helicopter that was forced to make an emergency landing 58 years ago and I still remember every detail, including who the passenger was.
San Diego Union political writer Peter Kay and I were in Los Angeles covering Gov. Pat Brown’s last campaign in 1966 when our helicopter lost power and nearly crashed into an apartment building. A sane person doesn’t forget the details of such a fraught enterprise.
In the case above it is more likely that this was just another example Donald Trump’s constant, pathological lies.
And it was obviously strange, To use the former president’s favorite description of Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Who is once again the Republican nominee for leader of the free world.
Whatever the root cause, even the 78-year-old Trump’s most loyal followers should think seriously about his mental state, whether he will ever again be able to serve as president of the United States — its commander-in-chief with access to the nuclear codes, and our interlocutor with foreign leaders, allies, and adversaries.
In deep blue California, there is no evidence that Trump’s increasingly bizarre behavior is eroding his support, as it is. But undecided voters are moving toward the Democratic ticket of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate Walz.
Harris leads Trump 59% to 34%. According to a new state survey from UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies, Harris is running 7 percentage points ahead of President Biden in late February. Trump’s vote hasn’t changed.
Trump’s false statement that he nearly crashed a helicopter with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown while Brown was saying “horrible things” about Harris was just plain stupid.
NPR counted 162 “lies and distortions” uttered by the former president in its question-and-answer session.
Former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown delivers a speech outside John’s Grill in San Francisco in 2023.
(Eric Risberg/Associated Press)
The Trump fabrication that attracted the most attention was:
“Well, I know Willie Brown very well. In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this was the end. We were in a helicopter together going to a certain place and there was an emergency landing.
“It wasn’t a pleasant landing. And Willie — he was a little worried. So I know him. I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me horrible things about (Harris). He wasn’t a big fan of his at the time.”
First, it shows Trump’s stupidity. He didn’t realize — or maybe he didn’t care — that reporters would immediately call the 90-year-old Brown, who proved the entire story was false.
First, Trump doesn’t know Brown “very well.” In fact, he barely knows him at all. Brown told me they’ve only spoken once in their lives, and that was at a New York luncheon 30 years ago, where Trump sought the then-state Assembly speaker’s advice on trying to develop the old Ambassador Hotel site in Los Angeles. The project failed.
Brown says he has never sat in a helicopter with Trump.
Most importantly, anyone who really knows Brown knows he would never speak ill of Harris.
The two dated for a couple of years in the mid-1990s, and Brown helped launch her political career as San Francisco district attorney. The two remain friends. And at the top of Brown’s value list is loyalty to friends and allies.
When I asked if he ever spoke to Trump about Harris, Brown replied, “No.” “Absolutely not. Absolutely not.”
“He’s absolutely panicked,” he said of Trump. “You can’t say anything that amounts to reason to him.”
I see the candidate is so desperate he invented Brown’s helicopter dialogue to take aim at Harris.
Brown is a black man and Trump fell in an emergency helicopter landing Another black politician from California in the 1990s.
Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles City Council member and state legislator, was also invited to New York separately from Brown to discuss the ambassador project with Trump.
Holden said, “Willie is the short black guy who lives in San Francisco. I’m the tall black guy who lives in Los Angeles.”
“As they say, we all look alike,” the 95-year-old Holden said. told Times reporter Don Lee, laughing.
Trump continued to insist, unconvincingly, that Brown was the one on the damaged helicopter and claimed he had maintenance records and logs to prove it. But they were never produced.
Barbara Res, once a top Trump executive, was on that flight. She confirmed Holden’s account in her 2013 book, “All Alone on the 68th Floor.”
“Well, that’s the story. No Willie Brown,” Race told Politico.
Holden said Trump either messed it up or made it up.
Probably a little of both. He has certainly fabricated Brown’s criticism of Harris.
His insane behavior should terrify America.
And the puzzling question is why the once-strong California GOP is pursuing this volatile character.
