At his recent, closely watched press conference at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump insisted that he went through a precarious helicopter ride with a particular former mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown. It’s now come out that it apparently wasn’t Brown riding along at all. Rather, it was Nate Holden, a former official from the southern parts of that state… though it looks like Trump and his team are trying to stick by the insistence that it was actually Brown who went through the incident.
“The man is a former President of the United States in serious decline. Why is his family letting him humiliate himself like this?” Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a member of the House Judiciary Committee, posted to social media on Friday.
Holden discussed the situation with POLITICO, also throwing cold water on the idea that the fateful helicopter ride included criticisms of Kamala Harris, who was a deputy district attorney in California around the time that Holden recalls the helicopter ride. Barbara Res, a former Trump company executive, also said that it was Holden, not Brown.
Despite all of this, Trump is refusing to give it up — and is seemingly mad at Brown for himself also apparently saying it didn’t happen. “In an article dated April 15, 2011, “His Willieness dishes about his good buddy Donald Trump. I remember one time Trump sent his private jet to Boston to pick me up.” He’s just angling for another ride in Trump’s jet (helicopter!). But now Willie doesn’t remember? No, he remembers!” Trump posted Friday.
Trump also made one of what lately are his few campaign stops on Friday, visiting Montana — a reliably Republican state in presidential elections, while Democrats target states elsewhere in the country that are closer in elections, from Pennsylvania to Arizona.
