Reeling from a week of media attacks on his background, Ben Carson Tuesday thanked Fox Business moderator Neil Cavuto for "not asking me what I said in the 10th grade."
"I appreciate that," Carson said during the fourth Republican presidential debate in Milwaukee.
The retired pediatric neurosurgeon chuckled as he made the remark, in response to a question about whether presidential candidates should be vetted, and bringing laughter and applause from the crowd at the Milwaukee Theatre.
"We should vet all candidates," Carson said. "I have no problem with being vetted. What I do have a problem with is being lied about. And then, putting that out there as truth."
Carson called for fairness for all presidential candidates, referencing emails by Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton during the 2012 Benghazi attacks.
"I don't even mind that so much, if they do it with everybody — like people on the other side," he continued. "But, 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 that it was a video, where I came from, they call that a lie."
Carson then mentioned the controversial press reports last week that he had erroneously claimed he was offered a full scholarship to West Point.
"That's very different from somebody misinterpreting, when I said, that I was offered a scholarship to West Point," he said. "That is the word that they used.
"We have to start treating people the same. And finding out what people really think and what they're made of.
"People who know me know that I'm an honest person."
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