Trump On His Wharton Degree: "Super Genius Stuff"

but I'm proud of my hey I went to the Wharton School of Finance I was a really good student I went to an Ivy League college I was a night student I did very well I'm a very intelligent person everybody knows what a great school it is look if I were a liberal Democrat people would say I'm at the super genius of all time Don Trump and it's typically modest fashion bragging in no shortage of degree about how smart he is and also his educational bona fides but the Washington Post they did a deep dive into his academic career and is not nearly as impressive as Trump would make it sound the post they spoke to an admissions office who was there at the time named James Noland he says the acceptance rate in 1966 was at 50% and it was even higher for transfers like Donald Trump who went to Fordham first Noland also told the Post he was not impressed with Trump's intellect quote I certainly was not struck by any sense that I'm sitting before a genius certainly not a super genius Noland also said quote it was not very difficult to get into Wharton at that time the article also points out the Trump was not one of the top honorees at graduation and he wasn't even on the dean's list plus Trump is of course refusing to release his transcripts this classic Trump won't show his tan transcript but he said this tweet in 2012 asking to see President Obama's academic records saying quote isn't it time that Obama released his college records and applications boy would that create a mess he's not who you think now your earlier Trump he had this to say about Obama it was a terrible student terrible he went to Occidental I heard he was a terrible student not like okay I heard he was a bad student how does a bad student then go to Columbia and then go to Harvard how does this happen well my next guest wrote the piece that we've been talking about michael kranish he is national political investigative reporter for the Washington Post and Andrew sat down with him earlier today Michael you've done some terrific reporting on Trump and Wharton before we get to the details of what you found I'm curious what was your motivation for doing this investigation well Donald Trump has said for years that he is the top student at Wharton he said he's heard he's the top student warden who ever evil has questioned his intellect he's referred to getting a degree at Wharton said it was the hardest school to get into so essentially I wanted to see if that was true and find out what exactly happened and getting into Wharton I know that an admissions officer at Wharton that you spoke with said he certainly didn't think that Trump was a genius but he also know the Wharton's acceptance rate was at the time with over 40 percent of the applicants who applied got in I'm wondering if the implication in this piece is that Trump might not have gotten in without help or that his acceptance by Wharton should be taken not should not be taken as proof that he's as intelligent and as good a student as he claimed right well my Trump saying was the hardest school to get into I wanted to see if that was true it is not the hardest school again to when we think of Wharton today you might think of the Graduate School this was the undergraduate School of Finance at the University of Pennsylvania so I'm also today to get into University of Pennsylvania the acceptance rate is seven point four percent it's an Ivy League school it is very hard to get into at the time Trump went to university Pennsylvania in 1966 the acceptance rate was more than 50% it was not that difficult to get into by any stretch certainly compared to today and he was a transfer student he'd already done two years at Fordham in the Bronx and those transfer students usually got in much easier than freshman students so part of it was an effort to see if it was true what Trump said in saying it was the hardest school into since he refers to this again and again so I was able to track down the admissions officer who reviewed his file and he remembered the case very well did tell me that this was not a difficult school to get into Trump has claimed that getting into Wharton shows he's a quote super genius quote unquote the emissions officer said he didn't think he saw a genius sitting in front of him that's a very high bar so it's Trump's own standards that I was looking at not some random look I mean he had set the bar very high saying was the hardest school and there was super genius stuff to get in and of course this being Donald Trump there are some mitigating factors of his own creation that factored in here as well he's refused to release his college transcripts in fact Michael Cohen testified that he threatened Trump's schools with legal action if they leaked the grades we also know that Trump tried to make a scandal out of President Obama's school records so how uncommon is it for a president not to release their scholastic data well scholastic data is not something that you know typically has to be released some people do release it I've done stories about candidates who've released their transcripts it's really the onus here is on Trump he challenged Obama in 2011 to release his college transcripts he said he heard quote-unquote that Obama was a quote terrible student and then he challenged him to put the records out so having said that Obama and given the story we just described that I wrote about Trump it seems fair to ask would Trump release his own transcripts he not only has refused to do that but as you mentioned his lawyer told the colleges during the campaign that they would be sued if they did release the transcripts they have no rights ways the transcripts there was no threat they would do so so the lawyer going through them really wasn't necessary but it underscored how Trump didn't want those grades for whatever reason to get out well then let me ask this from the other end of the telescope can you recall an elected official working this hard to keep his or her college grades a secret well I don't know if you can compare anybody to Trump for a whole host of reasons but I will tell you an anecdote I covered John Kerry's campaign back in 2004 and there was a controversy then about should John Kerry release every bit of his military records he did eventually release a lot of his military records but the one thing in those records that he did release he later did release after the campaign was over the only thing that was missing from his records were his college grades at Yale and they weren't that great during a freshman year as I recall it some D's in there in fact so he did put that out after the campaign he was thinking of running again he wanted the question to go away so it does show you if there's a great sensitivity there by some candidates about how their grades will look what's different here is that Trump has said he's done so great part of school to get into super genius stuff said he'd heard he was first in his class none of that was correct as far as the being the hardest school or first in his class in fact the Dean's List of 56 top students does not include Trump's name so clearly he was not first in his class Michael do we know if he got any help from his family to get in we know that trumps older brother Fred jr. wanted to go to Wharton and did not get in but Donald did you would think if the family was helping they both would have gotten in do do we know if they help do we know if the family pulled a Kushner and just wrote the school a check to try to grease the skids I looked at the financial contributions records they don't show any check contribution during those years but some of them are anonymous so I can't conclusively say they didn't contribute money I do tell the anecdote which hadn't which is important to understand here which is that a very close friend of Donald Trump's brother was the admissions officer were interviewed James Nolan was best friends with Fred Trump jr. who was the admissions officer in the story so he called up his friends saying can you you know interview Donald Trump to get into Wharton and his friend said sure and his friend gave Donald Trump a rating that was probably good enough to get in and then his a supervisor who did not interview Donald Trump did approve his admission so that's another part of the story that I tell final question Michael if anybody checked my transcripts from college they would not be flattering and in my mind would not really be a good indication of the man or the professional that I've become I'm wondering if you think we should give Trump the same benefit and what your take away of Trump the man and Trump the president was as a result of you looking into Trump the college student well the point here is that Trump is the one who set the bar high I don't doubt that you're a great news broadcaster now withstanding whatever grades you might have gotten and a lot of people do great without getting great grades some people drop out of college and go on to found multi-billion dollar company so that's not the point the point here is that Trump has said it was the hardest school to get into it wasn't and he said that he heard he was first in his class and he wasn't so there was an effort to basically check all the things that he said because he brings up his wharton back around time and time and time again when the piece is a terrific read job well done michael kranish is the national political investigative reporter with the Washington Post Michael thanks very much thank you having an coming up next scare tactics nothing new in politics for president Trump he's taking things to a whole new level after the break we'll show you what we mean