STEVE KORNACKI (HOST): We put a couple stats up here, too. This was a CNN poll, a recent poll, asking all Americans, do you believe that president Obama's a Muslim? Twenty-nine percent of all Americans saying, they do. That's nearly one in three. Among Republicans, though, that number jumps to 44 percent. So Eric, it does tell me that at least in theory, there's an audience here that Ben Carson could be connecting with. And I wonder, maybe Ben Carson takes a fall on this one because he's been, maybe there's that line you cross where you're too blunt, maybe people just decide, look, it's too much of a distraction, but do you think this is going to hurt Trump as well or just Carson?

ERIC BOEHLERT: Well, Trump has his national platform based I think on his birther campaign, which he sort of hatched with Fox News in 2011. This issue had basically been completely put to rest. They teamed up, that gave them a national platform after months and months of that chatter, that's when Obama finally came out, the long-form birth certificate, everyone kind of had a laugh, and everyone really thought the issue was put to bed. It will never be put to bed. There is 30, 40, we've seen polls, 60 percent of Trump's supporters don't think he's a [Christian], don't think he was born in America. So, where did this come from? This comes from this hot house atmosphere of the right-wing media. They believe it and they promote it. And they sponsor it. And then they wonder, why are these national candidates in trouble? Why is Ben Carson trying to walk back for three days in a row? Because this is what excites the base. This is what -- Ben Carson got in trouble years ago, comparing the U.S. to Nazi Germany, you know, on Fox News and things like that. So he has a long history of these sort of oddball comments that within the right-wing media, is very typical. But when he steps out of it and wants to lead this country, people are scratching their heads, saying, what's going on here.

[...]

KORNACKI: Well Eric, the flip side of this I guess though is Trump sort of comes out in the defense of Ben Carson. Nobody else does in this giant Republican field, the rest of the field has not come out and said the same thing. Is there a chance here that maybe this ends up making a Jeb Bush, a Marco Rubio, even Ted Cruz who said, hey, there is no religious test in the Constitution, did they look more reasonable by comparison?

BOEHLERT: I think it's too late for them. I think if when Trump arrived in July, if someone had said, I'm going to stake my campaign on fact checking, on pushing back, on pointing out the extreme rhetoric of Donald Trump, month after month, they could have carved out a niche, I think. They could have carved out a niche against the talk radio candidate of a Donald Trump, but nobody did it, because they were all scared. And so now if someone now kind of makes a stand against outrageous comments about a Muslim can't be president, it's going to be too little, too late, I think.

Previously:

Sean Hannity Assists Ben Carson In “Tempering” Muslim Remarks

From Fox To The Campaign Trail: Trump Previously Speculated Obama “Is A Muslim”

Trump And How The Media's Birther Blind Spot Keeps Getting Bigger