'There are 2 different Donald Trumps': Ben Carson shrugs off past attacks to endorse GOP frontrunner
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Ben Carson just endorsed his former GOP presidential rival Donald Trump for president.
Carson and Trump made the announcement at Trump's opulent Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday morning. Trump praised Carson as a "special, special person," while Carson talked about what he described as the will of American voters.
"This whole process getting involved in the political process was something I never particularly intended to do, but I listened to the people," Carson said. "It's really all about the people."
Carson said he had gained a better understanding of Trump as a person in recent days. He further suggested that Trump's campaign-trail persona was different from how Trump acted privately:
I've come to know Donald Trump over the last few years. He's actually a very intelligent man who cares deeply about America. There are two different Donald Trumps: There's the one you see on the stage, and there's one who's very cerebral.
Trump at first confirmed Carson's assessment of the two different versions of himself. Later in the news conference, however, Trump reversed himself, saying that what people saw on debate stages was authentic but belied that he was a "deep thinker," a side people don't see as much.
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Carson's endorsement came despite the stark differences between the two political outsiders. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon and popular author, became known for his calm demeanor and refusal to get in the "mud" of politics, as his business manager, Armstrong Williams, once told Business Insider.
On the other hand, Trump once used child molesters as a comparison while describing Carson's temper. Trump has also railed against Carson for being in favor of "amnesty," for reports claiming inconsistencies in Carson's biography, and even for Carson's "ridiculous" belief that Ancient Egypt's pyramids were used to store grain.
But Carson said Friday that he and Trump had moved on from Trump's attacks:
Some people said, 'But, well, he said terrible things about you. How can you support him?' First of all, we buried the hatchet. That was political stuff. And that happens in American politics: the politics of personal destruction. … I do recognize that is part of the process. We move on. Because it's not about me. It's not about Mr. Trump. It's about America.
In response to a question about whether God had led Carson to endorse Trump, Carson said he "prayed about it a lot."
"I got a lot of indications — people calling me that I haven't talking to for a long time saying, 'I had a dream about you and Donald Trump,'" Carson said. "Just amazing things."
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Carson also said a way God spoke to him was by giving him "wisdom," which indicated to him that if he allowed Republican operatives to stop Trump from getting the nomination, the party would be fractured irreparably.
He also talked about Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals."
"If you haven't read it, I actually recommend that you read it," Carson said. "The dedication page of that book says 'Dedicated to Lucifer, the original radical who gained his own kingdom.' I don't want anything to do with anything like that."
In response to a question about whether he would want to serve in a potential Trump administration, Carson said he was interested in "saving America."
"My concern is our posterity. All the people who are coming after us," Carson said.
"And we are destroying any possibility of the American dream for them with the policies that we're doing," he continued, "so I would be interested in helping to achieve the goal of saving American and making it great."
NOW WATCH: 'There are two different Donald Trumps' — watch Ben Carson's Trump endorsement speech