Can't compare lsb_release result to string in Bash

I'm doing something wrong on the string comparison below. It works if I set a variable and compare that, but I can't copy the value to a string. Does anyone know what's wrong? $ if [ "$(lsb_release -i)" = "Distributor ID: RedHatEnterpriseClient" ]; then echo yes; else echo no; fi no $ lsb_release -i Distributor ID: RedHatEnterpriseClient $ var="$(lsb_release -i)" $ if [ "$(lsb_release -i)" = "$var" ]; then echo yes; else echo no; fi yes