Former President Donald J. Trump on Friday afternoon vehemently maintained that he had once been in a dangerous helicopter landing with Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, and insisted he had records to prove it, despite Mr. Brown’s denial.
In an angry phone call to a New York Times reporter as he landed several hours away from his planned rally in Bozeman, Mont., because of a mechanical issue on his plane, Mr. Trump excoriated The Times for its coverage of his meandering news conference on Thursday at Mar-a-Lago, his private club and home, during which he told of an emergency landing during a helicopter trip that he said both he and Mr. Brown had made together.
Mr. Trump was expected to keep his rally schedule on Friday as planned, boarding a smaller plane to complete the journey.
Mr. Brown denied on Thursday that he had ever flown in a helicopter with Mr. Trump.
It appeared Mr. Trump may have confused Willie Brown with Jerry Brown, the former governor of California, with whom Mr. Trump traveled by helicopter in 2018 while surveying wildfire damage in the state. But Jerry Brown, who left office in January 2019, said through a spokesman, “There was no emergency landing and no discussion of Kamala Harris.”
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Willie Brown, who was a boyfriend of Vice President Kamala Harris during the 1990s, knew Mr. Trump as a potential business associate during those years, when Mr. Trump, then a New York developer, was working on new projects. A biography of Ms. Harris, “Kamala’s Way: An American Life,” reported that Mr. Trump had sent his private plane for Mr. Brown and Ms. Harris in 1994 to fly them from Boston to New York City.
“We have the flight records of the helicopter,” Mr. Trump insisted Friday, saying the helicopter had landed “in a field,” and indicating that he intended to release the flight records, before shouting that he was “probably going to sue” over the Times article.
When asked to produce the flight records, Mr. Trump responded mockingly, repeating the request in a sing-song voice. As of early Friday evening, he had not provided them.
Mr. Trump has a history of claiming he will provide evidence to back up his claims but ultimately not doing so.
He 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.”
