Ben Carson: West Point report shows 'desperation' of media

Neurosurgeon Ben Carson is lashing out against the media, saying the "piling on" by reporters since he emerged as a front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination "is actually going to help me."

The American people, he said "understand that this is a witch hunt."

Carson, who's been leading a crowded Republican field in some polls, is beginning to attract more scrutiny to his inspirational life story. Earlier in the week, it was suggestions that his story of a violent and angry upbringing in Detroit wasn't as violent and angry as he suggested. And on Friday, it was a report by Politico that he "fabricated" the story of an offer to attend West Point.

That report, Carson said, is a "boldfaced lie." (Politicoresponded late Friday with an editor's note on the story saying that Carson had implied he applied to West Point but that was not the case.)

Speaking to reporters in a sometimes-combative news conference Palm Beach, Fla., on Friday night, Carson said he expected similar attacks to come:

"There is a desperation on behalf of some to try to find a way to tarnish me, because they have been looking through everything. They have been talking to everybody I've ever known, everyone I've ever seen. There's got to be a scandal, there's got to be a nurse he's had an affair with. There's got to be something. They are getting desperate. So next week it will be my kindergarten teacher who said I peed in my pants."

Carson said the West Point story had been largely debunked in The Washington Post. "There are actually some people with integrity in your business," he told reporters in Palm Beach Friday night.

"What you’re not going to find with me is somebody who's going to sit back and let you be completely unfair without letting the American people know what’s going on. And the American people are waking up to your games," he said.

Carson said then-senator Barack Obama did not receive the same level of scrutiny when he ran for president, and he challenged reporters to investigate his college transcripts.