Ben Carson tries to shrug off West Point controversy at debate, suggests Hillary Clinton is the real liar

(Image credit: YouTube)

Tuesday's GOP debate moderators wasted little time in asking retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson about last week's controversy surrounding whether he was actually offered a scholarship to West Point (Carson maintains that he spoke with people who said they could help him get an appointment based on his grades and that the media misinterpreted his saying that he was offered admission, though West Point says Carson never actually applied).

Carson was quick to tie the controversy to media bias, saying that Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton faces far less scrutiny — even when it comes to bigger issues, like the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

"When I look at somebody like Hillary Clinton who sits there and tells her daughter and a government official that, 'No, this was a terrorist attack,' and then tells everybody else it was a video, where I came from, they call that a lie," Carson said. "I think that's very different than somebody misinterpreting when I said that I was offered a scholarship to West Point." Watch Carson's full response below. Samantha Rollins

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Samantha Rollins is TheWeek.com's news editor. She has previously worked for The New York Times and TIME and is a graduate of Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.