FACT CHECK: Donald Trump Claims Kamala Harris Never Passed Her Bar Exam
Former President Donald Trump claimed during a livestream with influencer and streamer Adin Ross that Vice President Kamala Harris never passed her bar exam.
Verdict: Misleading
Although Harris failed the bar exam on her initial try, she passed on her second attempt the next year.
Fact Check:
A poll from SurveyUSA found that Trump ranks ahead of Harris by four percentage points among voters ages 18 to 34, according to Newsweek. Subsequently, the same poll found that Harris leads Trump by 10 percentage points among voters ages 35-49, the outlet reported.
In a recent livestream with Ross posted to YouTube, Trump claimed that Harris never passed her bar exam. Around the 12:40 timestamp of the video, Trump says, “Look, (Harris) couldn’t even pass her law exam. She couldn’t pass her bar exam. And I’m not saying that because I know other people couldn’t pass their bar exam, but she thought she’d never be able to pass it. And this is who we have running our country. It’s a shame.”
This statement is missing additional context. While it is true that Harris failed her bar exam on the first attempt, she passed one year later in 1990, according to a 2016 profile of the then-Attorney General from The New York Times. The State Bar of California website corroborates that she was admitted to the bar in 1990. It shows that her license became inactive in 2021. (RELATED: Did Kamala Harris Post About Trump Being Connected To Jeffrey Epstein)
In her memoir “The Truths We Hold,” Harris wrote on page 26 that she took the bar exam in the spring of 1989, shortly after finishing law school, which she failed.
“In November, the state bar sent letters out to those who had taken the exam, and, to my utter devastation, I had failed,” Harris wrote. She continued on the next page, stating that she passed on her second attempt.
Data from the National Conference of Bar Examiners shows that the pass rate for the bar exam as a whole is not generally very high. February 2024 data shows that for California, the overall pass rate is 34 percent, with a 45 percent first-timer pass rate and 29 percent repeater pass rate.
Check Your Fact reached out to the Harris campaign and the California State Bar for comment.