The endorsement will come tomorrow at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, the Washington Post reports. According to the Post, the two former GOP rivals met earlier today to discuss the endorsement.
Trump has done astonishingly well with evangelicals throughout the Republican primaries, and Carson’s nod will undoubtedly make that connection even stronger—the retired neurosurgeon is wildly popular with evangelicals and other social conservatives.
But Carson’s endorsement is also somewhat surprising. After he briefly surpassed Trump in the polls in mid-November, Trump went nuclear, describing Carson as a volatile person with a “pathological” temper, and comparing him to a child molester. Trump also cast doubt on some of the stories in Carson’s memoir, Gifted Hands, which is the source of much of Carson’s popularity. (Carson, it’s worth noting, denied that Trump compared him to a child molester.)
Still, Carson may be Trump’s highest-profile endorsement yet. In terms of prominence, only New Jersey Governor Chris Christie can really compete. Whether Carson will take Christie’s place looking like a (in Carson’s case sleepy and/or nonplussed) kidnap victim behind Trump remains to be seen.