Brown, Willie L Jr

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      in Elections

      Willie Brown to Donald Trump: Mention My Name Again and Get Sued

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      Willie Brown, the former mayor of San Francisco, had a message for former President Donald J. Trump on Saturday afternoon: Keep my name out of your mouth or get sued.He stood with his longtime lawyer, Joe Cotchett, on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco, outside John’s Grill, the Saturday spot on Mr. Brown’s lunchtime rotation, and told reporters that he would sue Mr. Trump for slander and defamation if he repeated his concocted helicopter story one more time.“He’s never brought a lawsuit in his life,” Mr. Cotchett said of Mr. Brown. “But you know who’s pushing him to it? A guy by the name of Trump.”Mr. Trump and Mr. Brown have been verbally sparring since Mr. Trump falsely claimed at a news conference on Aug. 8 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida that he had once nearly died in a helicopter ride with Mr. Brown.Mr. Trump also said that Mr. Brown, who dated Vice President Kamala Harris in 1994 and 1995, said “terrible things” about Ms. Harris just before they almost plummeted to their deaths.“He was not a fan of hers very much, at that point,” Mr. Trump said.Mr. Brown promptly called the tale a lie — saying he had never ridden in a helicopter with Mr. Trump and had never told him disparaging things about Ms. Harris. In fact, he repeatedly told reporters that he respected her and desperately hoped that she would beat the man with whom he had never ridden in a helicopter.Mr. Trump repeated his claims on his social media site, Truth Social, and threatened to sue The New York Times for reporting that the helicopter story was made up. “Now Willie Brown doesn’t remember?” Trump wrote.That’s when Nate Holden, a former Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, said he had taken a rocky helicopter ride with Mr. Trump in 1990 and speculated that the former president might have confused him with Mr. Brown. Both California politicians are Black.Mr. Trump has not spoken about the helicopter incident since Mr. Holden came forward. But Mr. Brown and Mr. Cotchett said they wanted to make sure that he stayed quiet.Asked whether he wanted an apology from Mr. Trump, Mr. Brown said he would rather not hear from him at all.“No, I don’t want his apology,” Mr. Brown said. “I don’t want him to mention my name.”When asked to comment, a spokesman for Mr. Trump pointed to the former president’s threat to sue The Times but did not address what Mr. Brown said.Mr. Holden on Saturday applauded Mr. Brown’s legal threat.“If he’s propagating a lie, he should be held accountable,” Mr. Holden said of Mr. Trump in a telephone interview on Saturday from his home in Los Angeles. “I’m 95 years old, and Willie is 90, and he made the assumption we wouldn’t be here anymore, and nobody would challenge it. Well, we’re alive and well.”Maggie Haberman More

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      in Elections

      Trump Claims He Has Helicopter Trip Records and Threatens to Sue

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      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.”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.” More

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      Trump dijo que estuvo a punto de morir en un helicóptero, pero eso no sucedió

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      No hubo aterrizaje de emergencia, y los pasajeros del helicóptero nunca corrieron ningún tipo de peligro, según el gobernador Gavin Newsom, quien también estaba en el vuelo.[Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]El expresidente Donald Trump contó una anécdota el jueves que dejó boquiabiertos a todos: era sobre cómo estuvo a punto de morir en un viaje en helicóptero con Willie Brown, el expolítico californiano y exnovio de su rival, la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris.Solo había un problema con el relato. O quizá dos. O quizá tres.En el vuelo en helicóptero no viajaba el famoso exalcalde de San Francisco. Era el gobernador Jerry Brown, exgobernador de California, quien se parece muy poco a Willie Brown.Tampoco hubo aterrizaje de emergencia, y los pasajeros del helicóptero nunca corrieron ningún tipo de peligro, según el gobernador Gavin Newsom, quien también estaba en el vuelo.Jerry Brown, quien dejó el cargo en enero de 2019, dijo a través de un portavoz: “No hubo ningún aterrizaje de emergencia y ninguna conversación sobre Kamala Harris”.“Yo digo que es pura mentira”, dijo Newsom, riendo a carcajadas.El relato erróneo del expresidente, pronunciado durante una rueda de prensa en su club Mar-a-Lago en Florida, se produjo en respuesta a un periodista que le hizo una pregunta tendenciosa sobre la relación de Harris con Willie Brown, y si Trump pensaba que podría haber tenido algo que ver con su trayectoria profesional.

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      in Elections

      Willie Brown Says Trump’s Helicopter Crash Story Never Happened

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      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, who bears little resemblance to Willie Brown.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.”“I call complete B.S.,” Mr. Newsom said, laughing out loud.Mr. Trump’s errant account, delivered during a news conference at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida, came in response to a reporter who asked a leading question about Ms. Harris’s past relationship with Willie Brown, and whether Mr. Trump thought it might have had something to do with her career trajectory.The two dated in 1994 and 1995, while she was a prosecutor in Alameda County, which includes Oakland, and he was the speaker of the California State Assembly, and he appointed her to two state boards. He was — and still is — married to Blanche Brown, but they have long lived separate lives.

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(max-width:600px){.css-1wsofa1{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}.css-1p3zryq{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;margin:0;gap:4px;}@media (min-width:600px){.css-1p3zryq{-webkit-flex-direction:row;-ms-flex-direction:row;flex-direction:row;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;height:auto;margin:0 auto;gap:8px;}}Both Jerry Brown, left, and Willie Brown, refuted Mr. Trump’s story of a helicopter ride gone wrong.

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      California Sends Democrats and the Nation a Message on Crime

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      LOS ANGELES — Voters in California delivered a stark warning to the Democratic Party on Tuesday about the potency of law and order as a political message in 2022, as a Republican-turned-Democrat campaigning as a crime-fighter vaulted into a runoff in the mayoral primary in Los Angeles and a progressive prosecutor in San Francisco was recalled in a landslide.The two results made vivid the depths of voter frustration over rising crime and rampant homelessness in even the most progressive corners of the country — and are the latest signs of a restless Democratic electorate that was promised a return to normalcy under President Biden and yet remains unsatisfied with the nation’s state of affairs.“People are not in a good mood, and they have reason not to be in a good mood,” said Garry South, a Los Angeles-based Democratic strategist. “It’s not just the crime issue. It’s the homelessness. It’s the high price of gasoline.”The West Coast contests were being monitored closely by strategists and leaders in both parties around the country, as Democrats seek to hold together a fractious and diverse political coalition that can be divided both by race and ideology over criminal justice.In Los Angeles, Rick Caruso, a billionaire luxury mall developer, spent nearly $41 million telling voters how he would restore order in the city, vowing to add 1,500 officers to the police department and promoting the endorsement of William J. Bratton, the former police chief famous for his broken-windows policy. The race now heads to a November runoff. Mr. Caruso will face Representative Karen Bass, the Democratic former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Mr. Caruso had about 42 percent of the vote and Ms. Bass had around 37 percent early Wednesday morning.In San Francisco, about 60 percent of voters recalled Chesa Boudin, a former public defender who became district attorney in 2019 in a huge win for the progressive left. He promised then that “the tough-on-crime policies and rhetoric of the 1990s and early 2000s are on their way out.” Instead, he is.Chesa Boudin, the San Francisco district attorney, making final campaign appearances on Tuesday.Jim Wilson/The New York TimesThe elections on Tuesday showed the extent to which the political winds have shifted even in Democratic cities in the two years since George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer. The initial rally cry on the left then — “defund the police” — has since become so politically toxic that it is now more often used by Republicans as an epithet than by Democrats as an earnest policy proposal. And the crusading energy to overhaul policing in the face of rising crime has waned.For Democrats, the issue of crime and disorder threatens to drive a wedge between some of the party’s core constituencies, as some voters demand action on racial and systemic disparities while others are focused on their own sense of safety in their homes and neighborhoods.“People walking the streets, in many cases, feel themselves in danger, and that’s got to be dealt with,” said Willie Brown, a Democrat who is the former mayor of San Francisco.But Mr. Brown said too many Democrats do not want to talk about “what cops do” for fear of crossing the party’s activist class and offending “A.O.S. or A.O.C. or whatever that woman’s name is,” he said dismissively of Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the influential progressive.In a sign of how crime can divide the party in unusual ways, public and internal polling showed how the crime-and-homelessness campaign of Mr. Caruso, who is white, helped him make inroads with a large swath of Black men, even as he ran against Ms. Bass, who is Black. In one May survey, Mr. Caruso was performing more than 30 percentage points better among Black men than women.Mr. Caruso found traction in the heavily Democratic city despite being a longtime Republican who then became an independent and only joined the Democratic Party just before running for office. He ran a campaign promising to “clean up” the city and hailed Tuesday’s results as “a great awakening.”Jefrey Pollock, a pollster for Mr. Caruso, said the results should be a take-heed moment for the party.“If the Democratic primary electorate is showing a shift toward the middle on police and crime issues, then it is an even larger concern when thinking about the November general elections,” said Mr. Pollock, who also works for at-risk Democratic congressional candidates in other states.Turnout was low on Tuesday across California. And there is always a risk of over-interpreting local races where distinctly local dynamics are often at play. Mr. Caruso’s vast financial advantage — he outspent Ms. Bass by more than 10-to-1 — is not replicable in most races, and he still faces a fierce fight in the fall.Steve Soboroff, a Los Angeles police commissioner who himself ran for mayor in 2001 and endorsed Ms. Bass this year, was unimpressed by Mr. Caruso’s “basic guttural knee-jerk messages” on crime and his final showing, given his vast spending.“Caruso hit a glass ceiling made of Waterford crystal,” he said.In her own election night speech, Ms. Bass referenced the tilted financial playing field. “All of us stood strong against an onslaught,” she said.Election workers wait for voters at the Avalon Carver Community Center in Los Angeles on Tuesday.Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York TimesStill, Mr. Pollock noted that vulnerable congressional Democrats are already hearing about crime back home and racing to show how they differ with the “progressive trends on handling crime.” In Washington, House Democrats boosted funding and grants for local and state law enforcement by more than $500 million in this year’s appropriations package, delivering Democratic lawmakers a talking point to rebuff “defund” attacks from Republicans.And at the White House, Mr. Biden has made a point of outright rejecting the most severe rhetoric embraced by the activist left.“The answer is not to defund the police,” Mr. Biden said in February when he visited New York City, where Mayor Eric Adams, who won in 2021 primarily on a crime-fighting message, has been held up as an example of how to approach the issue.Mr. Biden’s chief of staff, Ron Klain, met privately with Mr. Adams this spring in part to strategize on approaches to public safety. “He was empathetic to the plight and the issue that we’re all facing,” Frank Carone, Mr. Adams’s chief of staff, said of Mr. Klain.The extent to which crime is actually up depends on the category being measured and the particular jurisdiction. But strategists in both parties said that whatever the data shows, there is a widespread sense that daily life in big-city America is no longer as safe as it once was.“There are voters in the suburbs and exurbs all across this country — they’re seeing what’s happening in cities,” said Dan Conston, who heads the leading super PAC for House Republicans. “They’re both aghast and concerned for their communities.”Understand the 2022 Midterm ElectionsCard 1 of 6Why are these midterms so important? More

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      How Kamala Harris Rose — and Rose

      by

      AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storynonfictionHow Kamala Harris Rose — and RoseKamala Harris, October 2003Credit…Mike Kepka/San Francisco Chronicle, via Getty ImagesAmazonApple BooksBarnes and NobleBooks-A-MillionBookshopIndieboundWhen you purchase an independently reviewed book through our site, we earn an affiliate commission.Feb. 1, 2021, 2:00 p.m. ETKAMALA’S WAYAn American LifeBy Dan MorainThe daughter of a Jamaica-born father and India-born mother who met in the turbulent world of ’60s Bay Area political activism, Kamala Harris has a social justice lineage that runs deep. In her 2020 Democratic National Convention acceptance speech as Joe Biden’s running mate, she proudly recalled having “a stroller’s eye view of people getting into what the great John Lewis called ‘good trouble.’” Her maternal grandfather served as a prominent senior government official in the tumultuous politics of postcolonial India. Dan Morain, for decades a reporter for The Los Angeles Times, recounts stories like these in “Kamala’s Way,” and his insider’s view provides a revealing portrait of the people and events surrounding Harris’s rise to political stardom. Morain paints Bay Area Democratic politics as a swampy world where schmoozing with potential billionaire funders and sitting on the right boards were essential to climbing the rungs. He details Harris’s liaison with the self-described “Ayatollah of the Assembly” and former San Francisco mayor, Willie Brown. Harris dated Brown in 1994 and 1995, splitting with him after his election as mayor. He was 30 years her senior. But the numerous stories about Brown feel misplaced, distracting from what should have been a tighter focus on Harris herself.Harris’s career took off during the 1990s in an era of bipartisan calls for tough-on-crime measures. As the Alameda County deputy district attorney, Harris spent years as a courtroom prosecutor before she was recruited to a supervisory position with the San Francisco district attorney’s office and then the city attorney’s office. She was elected San Francisco district attorney in 2003, and attorney general of California in 2010, a position she held until she was elected senator in 2016.Harris’s long tenure as a prosecutor in California, a harsh, punitive state, has drawn criticism. In her run for San Francisco district attorney in 2003, Harris called for improving conviction rates and prosecuting serious drug cases to clean up the streets. (The San Francisco Chronicle endorsed her candidacy under the headline “Harris, for Law and Order.”) But once elected, she took positions that cost her police support and came out strongly in favor of criminal justice reform. Her 2009 book, “Smart on Crime,” called for education, drug treatment and rehabilitation. As attorney general, she instituted first-in-the-nation programs to bolster police accountability. Undoubtedly, the most consistent through-line in her career is her unfailing championship of victims of sexual abuse, child trafficking and domestic violence.These actions, and Morain’s admiration for Harris’s “skill and charisma, her intelligence and grit, and her willingness to fight hard,” are tempered by Morain’s view that Harris’s ambition and national sights led her to “be both innovative and cautious,” sometimes acting as a trailblazer and other times holding her fire: “She took strong stands or she stood mute on the important criminal justice issues of her day.” Though balancing both sides, he seems to agree with the critics he cites who viewed her as “overly cautious.”Morain paints Harris as a pragmatic, ambitious politician who “took positions when she needed to and when those stands might help her politically,” but who was also “adept at not taking stands when doing so was not politically necessary.” Despite his inclusion of stories that show Harris’s warmth outside the limelight, his biography is not fawning. Nor is it very personal. Morain was not able to interview Harris or her family, but says he relied on “dozens of sources” with “firsthand knowledge.”This book is unlikely to satisfy readers enamored of the nation’s barrier-breaking vice president, who may find Morain’s judgments at times unduly critical, and his use of phrases like “brusque and antagonistic style” and “brash confidence” as distinctly gendered. At the same time, “Kamala’s Way” could appeal to aficionados of California politics who want a better understanding of the high-powered political world where Harris’s national star rose.AdvertisementContinue reading the main story More