TRUMP'S LIE ABOUT WILLIE BROWN IS REALLY A STORY ABOUT FEAR (updated)

Yeah, this was weird:

Former President Donald J. Trump told a jaw-dropping story on Thursday 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. It was Gov. Jerry Brown, the former governor of California....

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.”

Trump said this

when he was asked about Vice President Kamala Harris' past relationship with the former mayor and whether he thought the relationship had played a role in her career path.

"In fact, I went down in a helicopter with him. We thought maybe this is the end. 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 said. "So I know him. I know him pretty well."

Apart from the fact that they share a surname and a home state, I don't know how anyone who knows anything about politics could confuse Willie Brown (gregarious, glad-handing, and Black) with Jerry Brown (white, dour, and not particularly outgoing). But it's not clear that Trump knows much of anything about American politics prior to his own first campaign. It's possible that Trump (or an aide) remembered the Jerry Brown story and reassigned it to Willie Brown, but it's also possible that Trump pictures Jerry when he's told about Harris's long-ago romantic involvement with Willie because he doesn't know the difference.

But where does the near-crash come in?

We read this in The New York Times:

“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 Mr. Trump had, however, repeatedly brought up the possibility of crashing.

(Emphasis added.)

One of the strangest things about Trump is that he postures as a tough guy, but he's delighted to talk about all the things that irrationally frighten him. He's admitted that he likes fast food in part because he thinks fast-food chains are especially sanitary:

Addressing fast food in general, Trump told [CNN's Anderson] Cooper [in 2016]: “I’m a very clean person. I like cleanliness. And I think you’re better off going there than someplace that you maybe have no idea where the food is coming from. It’s a certain standard. But I think the food is good.”

From a 2021 Washingtonian story, we know that the restaurant in Trump's D.C. hotel had an elaborate ritual for seving Trump his beloved Diet Coke:

As soon as Trump was seated, the server had to “discreetly present” a mini bottle of Purell hand sanitizer. (This applied long before Covid, mind you.) Next, cue dialogue: “Good (time of day) Mr. President. Would you like your Diet Coke with or without ice?” the server was instructed to recite. A polished tray with chilled bottles and highball glasses was already prepared for either response.... The beverage had to be opened in front of the germophobe commander in chief, “never beforehand.” The server was to hold a longneck-bottle opener by the lower third of the handle in one hand and the Diet Coke, also by the lower third, in the other.

Ketchup (which Trump likes on steak) also had to be offered to Trump in a way that reassured him he wasn't about to be poisoned:

The manual instructed the server to open mini glass bottles of Heinz ketchup in front of Trump, taking care to ensure he could hear the seal make the “pop” sound.

Trump might not talk about these rituals, but he openly refers to himself as "very much a germaphobe."

And can we talk about sharks? Stormy Daniels has told us that Trump is terrified of them:

Here’s how she remembered a 2007 dinner in Trump’s room at the Beverly Hills Hotel:

The strangest thing about that night — this was the best thing ever. You could see the television from the little dining room table and he was watching Shark Week and he was watching a special about the U.S.S. something and it sank and it was like the worst shark attack in history. He is obsessed with sharks. Terrified of sharks. He was like, “I donate to all these charities and I would never donate to any charity that helps sharks. I hope all the sharks die.” He was like riveted. He was like obsessed. It’s so strange, I know ...

So strange. So we finished dinner and we moved to the sofa so he could get a better view of Shark Week.

Trump has denounced sharks on Twitter:

Sorry folks, I'm just not a fan of sharks - and don't worry, they will be around long after we are gone.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2013

Sharks are last on my list - other than perhaps the losers and haters of the World!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 4, 2013

And in campaign speeches -- and not the one you're thinking of:

... at a rally in Pennsylvania on August 20, 2020, Trump let it be known that he has no interest in using his power to safeguard the animal.

“They were saying the other night: the shark! They were saying, ‘Oh, sharks! We have to protect them,’” Trump recalled. “I said, ‘Wait a minute, wait.’ They actually want to remove all the seals in order to save the shark. I said, ‘Wait a minute. Don’t you have it the other way around?’ That’s true.”

Trump offered no explanation of who “they” were or where he had heard this, but Discovery’s “Shark Week” had just ended. It’s a safe bet he was referring to something he saw on TV.

All this was before the June 2024 fable of the battery-powered boat and the sharks. What could have been a simple (though complete false) story about how heavy, dangerous, and generally unseaworthy battery-powered boats are (in Trump's mind, with his ideas ascribed to an undoubtedlky fictional South Carolina boat builder) turned into a story about sharks:

“So I said, ‘Let me ask you a question, and [the guy who makes boats in South Carolina] said, ‘Nobody ever asked this question,’ and it must be because of MIT, my relationship to MIT —very smart. He goes, I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight? And you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery is now underwater and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’”

At this point, Trump apparently decided to pursue this tangent in earnest. “By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately, do you notice that, a lot of sharks?" he asked. "I watched some guys justifying it today. ‘Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were, they were not hungry, but they misunderstood what who she was.’ These people are crazy. He said there’s no problem with sharks. ‘They just didn’t really understand a young woman swimming now.’ It really got decimated and other people do a lot of shark attacks.”

And then he shifted back to his original story.

“So I said, so there’s a shark 10 yards away from the boat, 10 yards or here, do I get electrocuted if the boat is sinking? Water goes over the battery, the boat is sinking. Do I stay on top of the boat and get electrocuted, or do I jump over by the shark and not get electrocuted? Because I will tell you, he didn’t know the answer. He said, ‘You know, nobody’s ever asked me that question.” I said, ‘I think it’s a good question.’ I think there’s a lot of electric current coming through that water. But you know what I’d do if there was a shark or you get electrocuted, I’ll take electrocution every single time. I’m not getting near the shark. So we’re going to end that.”

Trump wallows in his own fears -- but remember, he's the tough guy, and the people who don't like him fear his courageous manliness.

UPDATE: Politico and The New York Times are reporting that Trump was in a helicopter that made an emergency landing years ago, accompanied by a Black politician -- but the politician was Nate Holden, who was a city councilman and state senator, is from L.A. rather than San Francisco, and is significantly taller than Willie Brown.

Mr. Holden said that he called Mr. Brown to compare notes. Mr. Brown told him he had never been in a helicopter with Mr. Trump.

“I said, ‘Willie, you know what? That’s me!’” Mr. Holden said. “And I told him, ‘You’re a short Black guy and I’m a tall Black guy — but we all look alike, right?’”

Nate Holden has never been linked romantically to Kamala Harris.