Former Trump executive denies his claim that Willie Brown was on board during helicopter incident

Barbara ResThe former vice president of construction and development at the Trump Organization on Saturday questioned the former president’s decision Donald TrumpAccording to reports, he was flying with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown in a helicopter that was forced to make an emergency landing in the 1990s.

“We were working on a very large project in California,” NBC News’ Res Ali Vitali told MSNBC, adding, “We were working with local and state politicians. And one of the very important politicians was this man, (former California state senator) Nate Holden.”

During a news conference Thursday, Trump told a story about a helicopter ride with Brown, telling reporters that “we were flying in a helicopter together to a location and there was an emergency landing.”

“It wasn’t a pretty landing, and Willie was, he was a little concerned. So I know him. I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years, but he said some terrible things to me about (Vice President Kamala Harris),” Trump added, referring to the fact that Harris and Brown briefly dated.

Asked if Trump often confused the identities of Brown and Holden, Res said Saturday: “I don’t remember. It was 30 years ago, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Donald didn’t mix them up in his head.”

“I really think,” Res added, “that Nate was, you know, a council member, and Willie was a big guy. He was an important, impressive guy. … (Trump) wanted to be with Willie because Willie was an important guy.

The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment for this story, but on Friday the former president responded to a New York Times account of the helicopter story, saying, “There were the ‘Logs,’ the Maintenance Records and the Witnesses. There was also the ‘Willie and Me’ article.”

Shortly after the former president’s news conference on Thursday, Brown dismissed Trump’s story. On Friday, he told NBC News: “No, no,” I was in a helicopter with Donald Trump.

“Are you kidding me?” Brown said, before confirming that he never spoke to Trump about Harris.

When he heard Trump’s story, Brown added, “I laughed. I just assumed he was in the helicopter with someone black, and he just made the mistake of thinking it was me.”

On Friday, Holden first told Politico that he was the man in the helicopter with Trump and that the pair, as well as several other people, were flying to Atlantic City to tour the new Trump-designed Taj Mahal casino.

His story was corroborated by Res, who told MSNBC: “It wasn’t like, ‘Oh my God, we’re going to crash.’ We just couldn’t, you know, keep going, so we found the closest airport and (the pilots) landed in Teterboro, and everybody was OK.”

“Donald was terrified,” Res said. “And when it was all over, he joked with Nate Holden, who is a black man, and said, ‘Nate, you turned white.’”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com