Donald Trump believes a Black Lives Matter activist, who was attacked and beaten while protesting at one of his rally's in Alabama over the weekend, "maybe should have been beaten up."

The 2016 Republican presidential front-runner has been less than apologetic ever since well-known local activist Mercutio Southall Jr. was kicked and pummeled by several of the candidate's supporters at a convention center in Birmingham early Saturday.

"Get him the hell out of here, will you, please?" The Washington Post reports Trump shouted as the violent episode unfolded. "Get him out of here. Throw him out."

At one point, the newspaper adds, Southall fell to the ground and was surrounded by several white men, with one of them wrapping his hands around the victim's neck as a female onlooker pleaded, "Don't choke him."

On Sunday, Trump again seemed to voice his approval for the way things played out.

"Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing," he said during a Sunday morning Fox News Channel interview. "I have a lot of fans, and they were not happy about it. And this was a very obnoxious guy who was a trouble-maker who was looking to make trouble."

The importance of the location of Saturday's incident was not lost on critics of the real estate mogul. Birmingham is infamous for being at the center of the 1960s civil rights struggle, and the huge crowd gathered in support of Trump was nearly all white in a city with a black majority.

Southall later told reporters all the drama commenced after he began recording himself and other protesters at the rally, saying that he wanted "Donald Trump to know he's not welcome here."

At that point, he claims someone knocked his phone from his hand and referred to him with a racial slur.

Since announcing his candidacy, Trump has used shock and awe tactics, issuing provocative statements to attract attention to his run for the Oval Office. He previously boasted that, if elected, he could easily deport as many as 11 million immigrants in less than two years.

As Southall was being ushered out on Saturday, Trump recounted how Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders responded to Black Lives Matter activists who interrupted him at one of his rallies earlier this year.

"You see, he was politically correct," he said. "Two young women came up to the podium. They took over his microphone. I promise you, that's not going to happen with me. I promise you. Never going to happen. Not going to happen. Can't let that stuff happen."