The man who nearly crashed a helicopter with Donald Trump told POLITICO that Trump mistook him for former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, despite the former president’s repeated insistence that it was Brown.
Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, said in an exclusive interview Friday night that he remembers the near-death experience well. He and others believe it happened sometime in 1990.
“Willie is a short black guy who lives in San Francisco,” Holden said. “I’m a tall black guy who lives in Los Angeles.”
“I guess we all look alike,” Holden told POLITICO, letting out a hearty laugh.
Holden, who is 95, was in contact with Trump and his team during the 1990s, when the flamboyant Manhattan developer was trying to build on the site of Los Angeles’ historic Ambassador Hotel. Holden represented the district at the time and supported the project.
In the interview, Holden said he was looking Trump’s press conference on Thursday, when the former president claimed that Brown was on board during the chilling helicopter ride.
In fact, Holden says he met Trump at Trump Tower, on the way to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they were going to visit the developer’s new Taj Mahal casino. In the lobby of Trump Tower, Holden says several people greeted him as “senator” — greetings that annoyed the host.
“He said, ‘You know I own this building, but nobody seems to know who I am,’” Holden recalled the mogul saying.
Holden recalled that he was a little worried about the helicopter ride because it came shortly after five people, including three high-level executives from Trump’s casinos, were killed when their helicopter crashed in 1989 on the Forked River, New Jersey.
But Holden says Trump told him they were in good hands and noted that he had two capable pilots. “He tells me to look at the sky,” Holden said. “Oh my God, it’s so beautiful.”
Also on board were Trump’s late brother Robert, attorney Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump’s former executive vice president for construction and development. Res told POLITICO on Friday that she also remembers the trip well. In fact, she said she wrote about it in her book, “All Alone on the 68th Floor.”
Res also remembers Brown. She liked him and brought him a hat from the Trump Princess superyacht, which she said he loved. But the man on the helicopter was definitely Nate Holden, she said.
On that trip, he said, the pilots began feverishly maneuvering equipment as the helicopter floundered over the water. “Out of the corner of my eye, I can see into the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might,” Res wrote in his book. Donald Trump and Robert Trump were reassuring Holden.
“Shortly afterward, the pilot informed us that he had lost some instruments and that we would have to make an emergency landing,” he wrote. “By then, the helicopter was shaking like crazy.”
After considerable turbulence, they landed safely in New Jersey, at an airport where Trump had stored his commuter helicopters.
Within an hour, they were in Atlantic City. Holden and Res enjoyed a nice lunch at the casino courtesy of Trump and headed back to New York. “We may not have gotten a lot of business done, but it sure was memorable,” he wrote.
On Friday, Res said by phone that Trump liked to tell a joke about Holden in the helicopter: “You turned white,” she said. But she said it was Trump’s face that was white.
“He was white as snow,” Holden added. “And he was scared to death.”
Asked for comment, a Trump campaign spokesman referred only to a paragraph from a New York Times article about the incident.
“(Trump) had already told the helicopter story in his 2023 book, ‘Letters to Trump,’ in which he published letters sent to him by several people, including Mr. Brown. In the book, Trump wrote: ‘We actually had an emergency helicopter landing together. It was a little scary for both of us, but luckily we made it through.'”
Res and Holden spoke by phone Friday night. They sometimes reminisce about the Ambassador project that might have been.
“That’s the story, okay?” Res said. “No, Willie Brown.”
Holden also reached out to Brown on Thursday. “I said, ‘Willie, were you almost in a helicopter crash with Trump, too?’ He said, ‘No.’ I said, ‘I was the one, Willie.’”
Before hanging up with POLITICO, Holden assured a reporter that no one discussed, let alone criticized, Kamala Harris the way Trump claimed Brown did.
“Either you got it mixed up,” Holden said. “Or you made it up. This was too serious to ignore. It’s a serious case. Confusing Willie Brown with me? The press is looking for the real story and they haven’t found it. You have.”
