Vice President Kamala Harris might be to pick a decent March Madness bracket, but she sure isn’t well versed in the NCAA Tournament’s history.
Harris hilariously offered up “a bit of a history lesson” that turned out to be completely false during an interview with Spectrum News.
“Do you know — OK, a bit of a history lesson — do you know that the women’s teams were not allowed to have brackets until 2022?” She wrongfully told a reporter.
“Think about that,” she added as the reporter nodded along like she was correct. “Talk about progress, better late than never.”
Sports Fan Kamala Harris claims the NCAA women's basketball tournament was "not allowed to have brackets until 2022."
As usual, she is wrong. pic.twitter.com/QaRSsngSxP
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) April 5, 2024
“Because what that has done, how we love March Madness, and even just now allowing the women to have brackets and what that does to encourage people to talk about the women’s teams, to watch them, and now they’re being covered,” she continued.
“People used to say, ‘Women’s sports, who’s interested?’ Well if you can’t see it, you won’t be,” the Vice President concluded. But when you see it, you realize, ‘Oh, we’re talking about star athletes who are incredibly gifted.”
“It’s nice we are finally giving women in sports that kind of platform. I find it so exciting.’”
Harris was completely off-base with her “history lesson,” as the women’s competition was officially added to the March Madness tournament in 1982.
The blunder about brackets was even more shocking, since the Vice President actually picked one in 2021.
Internet sleuths were able to dig up a social media exchange between Harris and her husband Doug Emhoff, where she awkwardly mocked him for his picks.
So you went with #1 seeds. I thought you were a fan of #2s! https://t.co/lYGnY4lT9B
— Vice President Kamala Harris (@VP) March 18, 2021
“So you went with #1 seeds,” Harris responded to Emhoff’s hand written brackets for both the women’s and men’s divisions. “I thought you were a fan of #2s!”
RNC Research’s X account trolled Harris for the obvious error in a tweet that went viral with 1.7 million views on Thursday.
“Sports fan Kamala Harris claims the NCAA women’s basketball tournament was ‘not allowed to have brackets until 2022,'” they wrote. “As usual, she is wrong.”
The social media manager followed up with a retweet of Emhoff’s 2021 bracket, which they simply captioned: “Awkward!”
Harris was mocked online as “the dumbest vice president in US history,” while one person noted that “she just makes stuff up everyday.”
“Nobody gives her anything to do. So she just talks,” added another.
“This woman makes Dan Quayle look like a physicist,” someone said while comparing her to former President George H.W. Bush’s running mate.
“When pressed on foreign policy, she proudly shared that she had Israel beating Hamas in the Sweet Sixteen,” another mocked.
On Friday, a spokesperson from Harris’s office clarified that the Vice President meant to say trademark, rather than brackets.
It wasn’t until 2022, that the NCAA first started to officially brand the women’s Division I tournament as “March Madness.”
The NCAA said that the branding change was geared “toward increasing opportunities for planning collaboration and cross-promotion, as well as making the two championships more financially equitable.”
“Women’s basketball has grown tremendously over the past several years, and we remain focused on our priority of enhancing and growing the game,” Lynn Holzman, the NCAA vice president of women’s basketball, remarked at the time.
“The brand recognition that March Madness carries will broaden marketing opportunities as we continue that work to elevate the women’s basketball championship.”
Texas-San Antonio athletics director and committee chair Lisa Campos told USA Today that adding the March Madness trademark to the women’s tournament would “enhance the development and public perception of the sport.”
The shift has been notable, as the women’s bracket dominated news coverage last year when LSU’s Angel Reese and Iowa’s Caitlyn Clark made national headlines, when the former taunted her opponent with the “you can’t see me” gesture during the title game.
While LSU took the championship in 2023, Clark got her revenge when the Hawkeyes knocked out the Tigers during the Elite 8 with a 94-87 victory.