Ben Carson to Endorse Donald Trump for President

Ben Carson, having ended his own presidential campaign, will endorse Donald Trump for the Republican nomination, sources told The Washington Post today.

They are expected to make the announcement Friday at Trump's Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla., the Post reports. The two met there today and finalized the endorsement, "perhaps the most high-profile nod for Trump since New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie backed him," the paper notes. Trump also confirmed the endorsement in tonight's debate in Miami.

Carson's support of Trump comes despite the insults Trump sent his way during the campaign. The billionaire businessman called the retired neurosurgeon "low-energy," said voters would be fools to support Carson, and even found him reminiscent of a child molester.

Carson, appearing Thursday on Fox News Radio, offered compliments to Trump and said he was likely to endorse a candidate soon, the Post reports. "There's two Donald Trumps," Carson said. "There's the Donald Trump that you see on television and who gets out in front of big audiences, and there's the Donald Trump behind the scenes. They're not the same person. One's very much an entertainer, and one is actually a thinking individual."

Carson is well known for his anti-LGBT views, including his staunch opposition to marriage equality, his description of transgender people as "abnormal," and his "joke" that a baker who disapproves of equal marriage rights might put poison in a same-sex couple's wedding cake. Trump has directed his most inflammatory rhetoric at Muslims and undocumented immigrants, but he has promised to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn the marriage equality ruling and expressed support for "license to discriminate" laws.

Carson's post-campaign gig is chairing a group called My Faith Votes, aimed at getting evangelical Christians to the polls.