Now that Ben Carson has taken the top spot in national Republican primary polls away from Donald Trump, he has faced an expected amount of extra scrutiny from reporters, who have recently called into question his story about stabbing a childhood friend, his theory about the Egyptian pyramids, and more. But is the press really vetting Carson any harder than they did a little-known Illinois senator by the name of Barack Obama eight years ago?
On Monday night, The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah set out to disprove Carson’s recent suggestion that as a Republican he was receiving unfair treatment.
“Maybe it’s me or where I’m from, but this is weird for me,” Noah said. “So, the media is saying, those rumors about you having a clean record and you being an upstanding member of society, those things are true, and Ben Carson is, like, ‘Bullshit! I’m dangerous and I try to kill people. I should be president!’”
Later, Noah played a clip from a recent combative press conference in which Carson remarked, “I do not remember this level of scrutiny for one President Barack Obama when he was running. In fact, I remember just the opposite.” The candidate added, “If you could show me where it’s happened with someone else, I would take that statement back.”
“Hmm… so if we can show you where that’s happened with someone else, you will take that statement back?” Noah asked with a knowing twinkle in his eye. “Challenge accepted.”
What followed was an impressively comprehensive supercut of some of the most damning media reports on candidate Barack Obama leading up to the 2008 election.
“Yeah, so they vetted Obama to the point where they questioned that he was a legitimate, natural-born American citizen, but at least no one ever accused Obama of not stabbing a guy,” Noah concluded. “He got off easy.”