June 19, 2020

The Trump Files: Donald’s Near-Death Experience (That He Invented)

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This post was originally published as part of “The Trump Files”—a collection of telling episodes, strange but true stories, and curious scenes from the life of our current President—on July 15, 2016.

After a chartered helicopter crashed and killed three of Donald Trump’s top executives in October 1989, the real estate mogul was distraught. “These were three fabulous young men in the prime of their lives,” he said in a statement. “No better human beings ever existed. We are deeply saddened by this devastating tragedy, and our hearts go out to their families.” A few months later, Trump told New York magazine that the crash had shocked him, showing him “how short and fragile life is.” The event, he said, helped convince him he should leave his wife Ivana.

But did Trump cheat death that day? “Sources said Trump himself was scheduled to be on the flight but decided at the last minute he was too busy to leave New York,” United Press International reported the day following the tragedy. Other outlets reported the same claim from the Trump camp, including Long Island’s Newsday and the New York Daily News, which slapped the report on its cover.

At least one biographer, former Village Voice reporter Wayne Barrett, believed the claim was a PR stunt. In his book, Trump: The Greatest Show On Earth, Barrett wrote that Trump “did not hesitate to use [the crash] for personal advantage. He planted stories suggesting that he had almost boarded the chartered copter himself, though he’d never ridden to Atlantic City on one, trusting only his [personal] Puma [helicopter].”

And after the Daily News story about Trump’s close call appeared, one of his executives told the Associated Press it was false. “Trump had definitely never planned to be on it,” said Bernie Dillon, vice president of Trump Sports and Entertainment.

As BuzzFeed noted last year, Trump later walked back his claim that he was supposed to be on the flight. He described it instead as a fleeting idea he had as the executives left his office. “As quickly as the idea had popped into my mind, I decided not to go,” he said in Surviving at the Top, his 1990 book.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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