Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson admonished the Washington press corps Friday, calling the news media “embarrassing” and “insincere” and vowing to “expose” the institutional bias he says runs rampant.
Speaking at a gathering of reporters and communications professionals at the National Press Club in Washington, Carson lashed out at the press, citing several instances where he believes his views have been misrepresented.
“Many in the press will say I’m sensitive and that I should not be thinking about running for office, because I get offended by what they do,” he said. “But the reason I expose the press is because I want the people of America to understand what they’re doing. It’s not because I’m sensitive.”
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson admonished the Washington press corps Friday, calling the news media “embarrassing” and “insincere” and vowing to “expose” the institutional bias he says runs rampant.
Speaking at a gathering of reporters and communications professionals at the National Press Club in Washington, Carson lashed out at the press, citing several instances where he believes his views have been misrepresented.
The retired neurosurgeon said he has no intention of calling a truce with the news media. “I will continue to expose them every time they do something, so that as more people understand what they are and what they’re doing, it will negate their affect,” he said. “Until they have the kind of transformation that’s necessary for them to become allies of the people, we have to know what they’re doing.”
Carson’s frustration with the press is boiling over as the presidential candidate, who is soaring in the polls and raising tens of millions of dollars from grassroots conservatives, has battled weeks of controversial headlines.
Carson believes his views on guns and religion have been intentionally distorted by reporters eager to sink his presidential hopes.
“The good thing is that a lot of people in America are on to them and understand what they’re trying to do, and that’s one of the reasons we’re doing well,” Carson said. “It seems like the more they attack me, the better we do.”
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Carson said he’s a frequent target for attacks because as a black Republican, doesn’t fit the mold of a traditional conservative and therefore is viewed as a threat to the liberal order.
He said there’s “still hope for the press” but that they must be called out on their hypocrisies in the hopes “that some of them will recognize it’s almost a sacred obligation they have to the people, to be honest.”
“There is only one business in America that is protected by the Constitution, and that is the press, and there was a reason for that. It was because the press was supposed to be an ally of the people," Carson said.
"They were supposed to expose and inform the people in a nonpartisan way. When they become partisan, as they are, they distort the system as it was supposed to work, and they allow the side that they pick to get away with all kinds of things.”