Ever since Donald Trump said Thursday that Willie Brown had bashed Vice President Kamala Harris years ago during a scary helicopter ride together, the former president has insisted that the story is true. This despite the fact that Brown, the former California Speaker, said he had never done business with Trump, let alone been on a flight with him.

But it turns out that another California official had.

In an interview Saturday, Nate Holden, the former longtime Los Angeles city councilman and state senator, recalled vividly what happened one day in 1990 when he had been invited by Trump to fly from Manhattan to Atlantic City on his chopper.

It was midday, Holden said, and he had just been served a drink when all of a sudden the hydraulic system failed, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing in New Jersey.

On Thursday, Trump said in impromptu remarks to the press that he and Brown “were in a helicopter going to a certain location together, and there was an emergency landing.” Trump said: “This was not a pleasant landing, and Willie, he was — he was a little concerned. So I know him pretty well. I mean, I haven’t seen him in years. But he told me terrible things about [Harris].”

Holden, 95, was incredulous that Trump could confuse the two men — “the short Black guy from Northern California and the tall Black guy from Southern California. But as they say, we all look the same,” he said with a laugh.

The Trump campaign hasn’t commented about what seems at best a mistaken identity, and worse, a fabricated story meant to discredit Harris, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee.

After Brown denied that he had never gotten on a helicopter with Trump, the national and international media have been all over the story. And Trump has not only stuck by his statements but posted on social media that he had evidence in “logs, maintenance records, and witnesses” to back up his account.

But another person on that helicopter ride was Barbara Res, once a top executive in charge of construction and development at the Trump Organization. In her 2013 book, “All Alone on the 68th Floor,” Res essentially corroborates Holden’s account of what happened.

“As we pulled out over the Hudson, the helicopter began to shake,” she wrote. “Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing. By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy. Donald loves to tell the story that Nate, an African American, turned white, but as I recall Donald was pretty white himself.”

Holden said Saturday that he called Brown shortly after seeing Trump’s comments about the helicopter incident on television. “I just thought Donald Trump’s got a problem. He had almost two fatal accidents, one with Willie Brown and one with me,” Holden said. So he asked Brown: “Willie, were you in a helicopter with Trump which almost crashed?”

Holden was in the copter with Trump to discuss the Manhattan developer’s desire to build on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel on Wilshire Boulevard in the Los Angeles Mid-Wilshire District. Holden represented the district at the time.

Trump “wanted to meet with Nate because Nate was very, very influential,” Res said in an interview, noting that she brought Holden to New York. “And when we were going for the meeting, Donald said, ‘I can’t, I have to go to Atlantic City. Let’s have our meeting on the helicopter.” (Trump’s project on that Wilshire site got entangled in litigation and never came together.)

Holden said that he knew Trump was trying to impress him. On board, Holden recalled, “Trump said, ‘Look at the skyline. It’s the best in the world.’ ”

But Holden wasn’t impressed, and said he was livid when the aircraft had mechanical problems. “I couldn’t believe they didn’t maintain their helicopter. I was raising hell because they put my life in jeopardy.” Only a year earlier, in 1989, three executives of Trump’s casinos were killed, along with two others when a chopper crashed over Fork River in New Jersey.

As for Trump, Holden said, “He was speechless. He turned white as snow, glued to his seat.”

“There was no hint of any real danger that I perceived,” Res said. “Trump was terrified. He was scared s—less,” Res said. “He just lost three executives on the flight that he said he was scheduled to be on, which of course he was never scheduled to be on that flight. But, you know, why not make use of three dead good employees.”

In a similar way, both Res and Holden said Trump told his own version of what happened on the helicopter with Holden.

“Trump knew Willie Brown was the speaker of the Assembly and Nate Holden was a councilman, and so he wanted to make it more important,” Res said. “Also, he wanted to include a comment about Harris and I don’t think you could make a connection between Harris and Holden.”

Said Holden: “It makes the story more juicy.”

A coalition of Republican states are suing the Biden administration to prevent it from making some illegal immigrants eligible for Obamacare, just days before the 2024 presidential election.

A rule published in May would allow illegal immigrants who came as children and are protected from deportation via the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program to be eligible for healthcare through the Affordable Care Act.

Currently, all illegal immigrants are prohibited from accessing the program. The administration said it predicts that the rule, which would go into effect in November, would result in over 100,000 uninsured illegal immigrants being allowed to access insurance.

THESE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE ELIGIBLE FOR OBAMACARE AFTER BIDEN RULE CHANGE 

Fifteen states, led by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, claim that the regulation violates federal law that bars giving benefits to illegal immigrants and violates the Act itself.

The ACA, as passed by Congress, limits eligibility to citizens or nationals of the U.S. and those “lawfully present,” the complaint says.

“Illegal aliens shouldn’t get a free pass into our country. They shouldn’t receive taxpayer benefits when they arrive, and the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t get a free pass to violate federal law. That’s why I am leading a multistate lawsuit to stop this illegal regulation from going into effect,” Kobach said in a statement.

The attorneys general of Alabama, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Virginia have all signed on to the lawsuit.

HHS did not respond to a request for comment.

REPUBLICAN STATES ASK FEDERAL JUDGE TO END ‘UNLAWFUL’ DACA PROGRAM 

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rule would allow DACA recipients to apply for coverage through HealthCare.gov and state-based marketplaces by making what HHS calls “technical modifications” to the definition of “lawfully present” used to determine eligibility.

In a statement on the rule, President Biden renewed his calls for those he called “Dreamers” to be granted a pathway to citizenship along with others of millions of illegal immigrants.

HARRIS AND WALZ BOTH SUPPORT AMNESTY FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS 

“I’m proud of the contributions of Dreamers to our country and committed to providing Dreamers the support they need to succeed. That’s why I’ve previously directed the Department of Homeland Security to take all appropriate actions to ‘preserve and fortify’ DACA. And that’s why today we are taking this historic step to ensure that DACA recipients have the same access to health care through the Affordable Care Act as their neighbors,” he said.

“On Day One of my administration, I sent a comprehensive immigration reform plan to Congress to protect Dreamers and their families. Only Congress can provide Dreamers permanent status and a pathway to citizenship. Congress must act.”

Vice President Harris, in a separate statement, made a similar appeal.

“President Biden and I will continue to do everything in our power to protect DACA, but it is only a temporary solution. Congress must act to ensure Dreamers have the permanent protections they deserve,” she said.

Get the latest updates on the ongoing border crisis from the Fox News Digital immigration hub

The Los Angeles City Council has dedicated an additional $200,000 toward the copper wire task force, tripling the funds focused on curtailing the theft of metal from public infrastructure.

Peter Brown, Councilmember Kevin De León’s communications director, said the initiative, dubbed the heavy metal task force, is the “most aggressive and proactive effort” to crack down on the thefts that have left predominantly working-class communities without adequate street lighting or internet service — and cost the city at least $17 million in repairs.

The money, which comes from De León’s discretionary funds, brings the total funding toward the endeavor to $600,000. It will be allocated to the Los Angeles Police Department, whose officers from Central, Newton, and Hollenbeck Divisions have led 26 operations in recent months, resulting in 82 arrests, 2,000 pounds of recovered copper wire and the confiscation of nine firearms.

Of the 82 arrests, 60 individuals are facing felony charges.

“This additional funding will enhance our ability to combat these destructive crimes and ensure that our neighborhoods can be safe and secure,” De León said in a statement Tuesday. “The success of the Heavy Metal Task Force sends a decisive message to criminals that Los Angeles will no longer allow you to use our city assets as your ATM. This ATM is closed. While we have had success with the results of the task force, we still have much more to do.”

Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martínez voted against the motion, which passed 12-2 Tuesday.

The streetlight outages are a “serious problem,” Soto-Martínez told The Times in a statement Thursday, but the issue may not necessarily be due to copper wire theft.

“We’ve discovered that around 70% of those outages are because of a lack of maintenance,” Soto-Martínez said. “Without seeing any data to suggest that this task force will actually prevent future vandalism and outages, our limited funds should be better spent in supporting the Bureau of Street Lighting in fixing lights that are currently out, while also supporting proven preventative measures like streetlight hardening and installing LED lights, which don’t use copper wire.”

Hernandez agreed and said she’d rather have resources devoted to efforts that “actually prevent thefts from happening in the first place,” such as the solar-powered street lights that were installed on streets in Van Nuys earlier this year.

Instead, she said in a statement, the city has been “doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results when it comes to copper wire theft.”

“Streetlights are out all over the city, and it currently takes almost a year to fix them, just for the cycle to repeat again,” Hernandez continued. “The Bureau of Street Lighting has started piloting solar powered lighting that eliminates the problem of copper wire theft and moves us closer to our renewable energy goals — but the City has only deployed a few hundred of these lights. It’s time to make investments in solutions that will get the lights back on for good.”

Hernandez and Soto-Martínez also voted against forming the task force in February, arguing that the endeavor focused more on punitive measures than prevention.

De León referenced the February meeting July 30 in a news conference announcing the results of the task force, saying the thefts were “not a victimless crime.”

The same day, De León and Councilmember Traci Park introduced motions instructing the Bureau of Street Lighting to brand its copper wire as city property and for City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to draft an ordinance prohibiting the possession of telecommunications cable by any individual or business unaffiliated with telecommunications companies.

The council has yet to vote on those motions.