Kamala Harris took a ride on Trump's gilded plane in 1994, book says
- Long before she was Vice President, Kamala Harris took a flight aboard one of Trump's planes.
- It happened in 1994, when Harris was in a relationship with then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown.
Kamala Harris took a flight on an a gilded jet owned by Donald Trump in 1994, according to a biography of the vice president and a recent interview with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown.
According to the 2021 book "Kamala's Way," Harris made the trip from Boston to New York City aboard Trump's plane when she was in a relationship with Willie Brown, then the speaker of the California State Assembly.
At the time, Harris would have been working as a deputy district attorney in Alameda County. While she was in Boston with Brown, the speaker received a call from Trump, then a billionaire real estate developer, who wanted to discuss a potential hotel in Los Angeles.
Trump sent his jet to Boston, and with Harris in tow, Brown flew to New York City aboard the jet, which had "notes left for Trump by his then-wife, Marla Maples" inside, according to the book. Brown wrote in 2013 that the plane included a "bedroom filled with paintings you would usually find in a museum."
Brown told Politico in a recent interview that Harris did not join his meeting with Trump, but that Brown and Harris took a photo on Trump's plane.
"I have the picture," Brown told the outlet. Trump would later donate $5,000 to Harris' 2011 campaign for California Attorney General.
Representatives for Trump, Harris, and Brown did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The story came to light again after Trump claimed at a press conference Thursday that Brown told him "terrible things about her" and that he was once caught in an emergency landing on board a helicopter with Brown.
Brown denied both of those claims in an interview with the San Francisco Chronicle Thursday, saying he "wouldn't say anything bad about any woman" to Trump and that he never flew in a helicopter with the former president.
Trump may have confused Willie Brown for former Gov. Jerry Brown of California.
In 2018, Trump, Gov. Brown, and then-Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom toured wildfires in California in a helicopter, though representatives for both men told NBC News that there was no emergency landing and no discussion of Harris aboard the flight.