"Willie is the short Black guy living in San Francisco," Holden said. "I'm a tall Black guy living in Los Angeles.
"I guess we all look alike," Holden told POLITICO, letting out a loud laugh.
Holden, who is 95 years old, was in touch with Trump and his team during the 1990s when the flamboyant Manhattan developer was trying to build on the site of the historic Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Holden represented the district at the time and supported the project.
Holden says he met Trump at Trump Tower, enroute to Atlantic City, New Jersey, where they were going to tour the developer's brand new Taj Mahal casino. In the lobby at Trump Tower, Holden says he was greeted by several people as "senator," salutations that miffed the host.
"He said, You know I own this building but nobody seems to know who I am," Holden remembered the mogul saying.
Holden recalled being a bit worried about the helicopter ride because it came not long after five people, including three high-level executives of Trump's casinos, were killed when their chopper crashed in 1989 over Forked River, N.J..
Also aboard was Trump's late brother, Robert, the attorney Harvey Freedman and Barbara Res, Trump's former executive vice president of construction and development. Res told POLITICO on Friday that she also remembers the ride well. In fact, she said she wrote about it in her book, "All Alone on the 68th Floor."
On that ride, she said the pilots started feverishly maneuvering the equipment as the chopper lurched over the water. "From the corner of my eye, I can see in the cockpit and what I see is the co-pilot pumping a device with all his might," Res wrote in her book. Donald Trump and Robert Trump were reassuring Holden.
"Very shortly thereafter the pilot let us know he had lost some instruments and we would need to make an emergency landing," she wrote. "By now, the helicopter was shaking like crazy."
After considerable turbulence, they landed safely in New Jersey at an airport where Trump had his commuter helicopters stored.
"That's the story, OK," Res said. "No Willie Brown."
What should be concerning to the American electorate (or specifically those voters within it who already don't find Trump's incessant lying and decades-long history of criminal conduct and questionable business practices disqualifying) is not that Trump got confused over the specifics of an event that occurred 30+ years ago, it's his refusal to accept that his memory is wrong as those he named have all come forward and said such an event didn't happen with them while they were with Trump.Transpose this denialism and inability to be swayed by others telling him that his recollection is incorrect onto any issue he might have to deal with should he become President again. Joe Biden has never publicly shown this type of mental defect ever that so clearly calls his judgments into question for failing to accept the truth of a matter over what his failed memory is telling him.
If Republicans were so worried about the state of Joe Biden's fitness for holding office, how can they not be even more worried about Trump's failing recall that juxtaposes people and places while his ego refuses to allow him to accept the truth when he's given the correct details?