Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson says rival Donald Trump has him all wrong.

“I have plenty of energy. But, you know, I am soft-spoken. I do have a tendency to be relaxed,” Carson said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC’s “Meet The Press.” 

Carson was responding to Trump’s renewed line of attack, repeated in Iowa, that Carson is “super low energy” as he pulled ahead there last week in a pair of key polls.

"You know, everybody has their own personality. And if he'd like to do that, that's fine. That's not who I am," the retired neurosurgeon said of Trump. "I don't get into the mud pit. And I'm not going to be talking about people. I will tell you in terms of energy I'm not sure that there's anybody else running who's spent 18 or 20 hours intently operating on somebody."

In the interview aired Sunday, Carson also defended his controversial comments about how gun control allowed the Nazis to carry out the Holocaust. 

“In the last several weeks, I've heard from many people in the Jewish community, including rabbis, who said, ‘You're spot on. You are exactly right,’” Carson said. “I think it is generally agreed that it's much more difficult to dominate people who are armed than people who are not armed.

"You know," he added, "some people will try to take that and, you know, make it into an anti-Jewish thing, which is foolishness.”

On abortion, Carson said he “would love” to see Roe v. Wade overturned, and abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape or incest. 

There should be room to discuss abortion in cases where the mother’s life is in danger, he added, though “in the ideal situation, the mother should not believe that the baby is her enemy and should not be looking to terminate the baby.”

And on Syria, Carson said he would talk with Russia without capitulating to them. 

Russian President Vladimr Putin "has expansionist ideals,” Carson said. “When he came into Syria, he said he was coming there to fight ISIS. But was he really? ... It was the anti-Assad forces that he was there to fight. So, you know, we have to look at that. And I think we have to oppose him.”