So, Trump’s Helicopter Crash Story Is Only a Loopy Lie?

Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Photos

Donald Trump mentioned plenty of wacky issues throughout his August 8 press convention at Mar-a-Lago, as he’s wont to do. He claimed Kamala Harris, a former California legal professional normal, “couldn’t cross the bar examination” (she failed the primary time and handed a yr later). He mentioned he drew an even bigger crowd for his January 6, 2021, “Cease the Steal” rally than Martin Luther King Jr. did for his “I Have a Dream” speech (the gang on the 1963 March on Washington was about 25 instances larger).

However Trump’s zaniest declare was that he almost “went down in a helicopter” with Willie Brown. Trump was responding to a reporter’s query about whether or not Harris’s relationship with the previous San Francisco main helped her profession.

“I do know Willie Brown very effectively,” Trump mentioned. “The truth is, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought perhaps that is the top. We have been in a helicopter going to a sure location collectively, and there was an emergency touchdown.”

“This was not a nice touchdown, and Willie was, he was a little bit involved,” Trump continued. “So I do know him, I do know him fairly effectively. I imply, I haven’t seen him in years. However he informed me horrible issues about her … he was not a fan of hers, at that time.”

This can be a loopy story — not as a result of Trump and Brown almost died in a helicopter crash and that is the primary we’re listening to of it, however as a result of it seems to be fully made up.

The New York Instances referred to as Brown after the press convention, and he mentioned Trump’s story was completely false:

He had by no means ridden in a helicopter with Mr. Trump, he mentioned. He had by no means almost perished in any helicopter experience. And he remained an avid supporter of Ms. Harris’s.

Mr. Brown, who loves regaling anyone who will hear with tales and who penned a weekly column in The San Francisco Chronicle till 2021, added, laughing: “You already know me effectively sufficient to know that if I virtually went down in a helicopter with anyone, you’ll have heard about it!”

Trump did take a helicopter experience with California governor Jerry Brown and governor-elect Gavin Newsom in 2018 to survey harm from the Camp Hearth, the deadliest wildfire within the state’s historical past. So perhaps he simply acquired confused about which California politician he shared a near-death expertise with?

That also doesn’t clarify it, as a result of Willie Brown and Jerry Brown don’t look something alike. Right here’s a photograph of the 2 males shaking palms in 1998:

Photograph: Lea Suzuki/San Francisco Chronicle/Getty Photos

And each Jerry Brown and Newsom informed the Instances that nothing uncommon occurred throughout their 2018 helicopter experience with Trump.

“There was no emergency touchdown and no dialogue of Kamala Harris,” the previous governor mentioned via a spokesperson.

Newsom mentioned mainly the identical factor, with extra element and chuckling:

“I name full B.S.,” Mr. Newsom mentioned, laughing out loud.

… “I used to be on a helicopter with Jerry Brown and Trump, and it didn’t go down,” Mr. Newsom, 56, mentioned in an interview. He mentioned that Mr. Trump had, nevertheless, repeatedly introduced up the opportunity of crashing.

The topic of Ms. Harris, with whom Mr. Newsom had loved a pleasant rivalry, didn’t come up on the helicopter, he added. “We talked about everybody else, however not Kamala,” he mentioned with fun.

The Trump marketing campaign has not supplied a believable rationalization for Trump’s story. When CNN requested Trump-campaign spokesman Steven Cheung to elaborate, he solely responded, “Slick Willie!” — a nickname of Willie Brown’s.

It’s fairly laborious to imagine that the president and two California governors almost died in 2018 and it wasn’t reported on the time — or that Trump ever survived a brush with demise and saved quiet about it. The one believable argument for a way this wasn’t only a loopy lie got here from one other Trump foe, John Bolton. And the previous Nationwide Safety adviser wasn’t arguing that what Trump says is true, however that he’s so delusional even he doesn’t know what’s actual.

“Trump can’t inform the distinction between what’s true and what’s false,” Bolton informed CNN. “It’s not that he lies lots, as a result of to lie, you must do it consciously. He simply can’t inform the distinction. So, he makes up what he needs to say at any given time.”

Bolton was really commenting on one other Trump lie from the press convention (that he urged his supporters to not chant “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton). However Bolton’s perception into his former boss’s psyche helps clarify why Trump would inform an outrageous, false story in entrance of a bunch of reporters. Who’re we to say the helicopter story is a lie if Trump actually believes it?