White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, "it's not easy to run for president--it shouldn't be." | AP Photo White House: Carson isn't more scrutinized than Obama

White House press secretary Josh Earnest pushed back Monday on Ben Carson's assertion that no candidate, including Barack Obama, has faced more scrutiny than he has in his six-month campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

Over the weekend, Carson told NBC's Chris Jansing that questions surrounding the first presidential campaigns of Obama and Bill Clinton were "not even close" to what he has faced from the media to this point.


"Uh, I don't agree with that statement," Earnest said during the daily press briefing, to laughter. "I think many of you who have covered both the 2008 campaign and this campaign, I think, can obviously draw your own conclusions based on the work that all of you have done."

The electoral process is good for American democracy, Earnest said, adding, "it's not easy to run for president — it shouldn't be."

When people make public comments, he continued, "they are going to have their claims scrutinized, even if they're claims about their own biography."

"That's part of the process, and it was difficult when those questions were raised about Sen. Obama," Earnest said, recalling an incident in 2008 in which it was less the claims about Obama that were being questioned and more so claims that were difficult to disprove — an allusion to the controversy over whether the then-Illinois senator was in fact born in the United States.

Asked whether he thinks the questions being asked of Carson are fair, Earnest said he does, "but ultimately that’s for the American people to judge.”