Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump falsely claimed Wednesday during an interview at the National Association of Black Journalists conference that presumptive Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris failed the California bar exam.
The untruth was said during an exchange when Semafor reporter Kaida Goba asked whether the former president would resign if he felt he could no longer be president if elected. Trump responded by challenging Harris, who is 19 years his senior, to a cognitive test.
“She failed her bar exam. She didn't pass her bar exam, so maybe she won't pass the cognitive test,” Trump said. “She failed her bar exam, and she didn't think she was going to pass it, and she didn't think she was ever going to pass it, and I don't know what happened.”
Harris has stated that she did not pass the exam on the first try, but that she did pass it later and was admitted to the California bar the year after graduating.
Trump's claim was followed by a series of disparaging attacks on the vice president during the interview, including questioning the authenticity of her ethnicity.
“I didn't know she was black until a few years ago, when she happened to become black, and now she wants to be known as black,” Trump said.
The former president also claimed Harris was a “DEI” candidate and called ABC News host Rachel Scott rude for repeating the candidate's past derogatory statements about the black community.
Trump: I've never been asked such a horrible question, first question. You don't even say, “Hello, how are you.” Are you on ABC? Because I think they're a fake news network, a horrible network photo.twitter.com/K8qnUnYKUf
— Acyn (@Acyn) July 31, 2024
The interview with Trump was supposed to last an hour, but was ended after just 35 minutes. Scott concluded the interview by saying, “We have to leave it at that, on behalf of the Trump team.”
The claim about Harris’ performance on the bar exam first emerged during the 2020 confirmation hearings of Associate Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and is true, but lacks context. Harris passed the bar exam and worked as a prosecutor in California before becoming the state’s attorney general.
Harris passed a difficult exam
The bar examination is the qualifying examination for lawyers to become licensed to practice law in a particular state.
California has a notoriously difficult bar exam. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times reported that the pass rate “generally hovers around 50 percent.”
Harris graduated from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law in 1989.
Harris told the New York Times in 2016 that she had failed the exam on her first try. She consoled a recent law school graduate who had also failed by saying, “I told her it's not a measure of your ability.”
According to the California Bar, Harris was admitted in 1990 and had her license revoked in February 2021.
In 2020, when the claim first surfaced, the pass rate for “freshmen” who took the test was just over 67%. Fewer than 45% of “freshmen” who took the test in February passed, according to a report from the California Bar.
Larry Cunningham, dean of the Charleston School of Law, told USA TODAY in 2020 that the exam has been criticized as “unrealistic” and insufficient in assessing important legal skills, such as interviewing clients and arguing in court.
“This criticism also explains why many law students who struggle to pass this important exam on the first try go on to become excellent lawyers and judges,” he wrote.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump claims Harris, former prosecutor, failed bar exam, but she did
