By Nick Corasaniti

Donald Trump Says He Supports Those Who ‘Roughed Up’ Protester at His Event

By
Nick Corasaniti

Donald J. Trump said on Sunday he was in favor of the actions of his supporters who reportedly punched and kicked a protester from the Black Lives Matter movement who interrupted Mr. Trump’s campaign rally the previous day in Birmingham, Ala.

“Maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing,” Mr. Trump said in an interview with “Fox and Friends” on Sunday. “This was not handled the way Bernie Sanders handled his problem, I will tell you.” (Mr. Trump was referring to an event earlier this year where Mr. Sanders handed over his microphone to protesters and left the stage.)

Yesterday, Hope Hicks, a spokeswoman for the Trump campaign, told CNN that “the campaign does not condone this type of behavior.”

The protester, Mercutio Southall, 31, who co-founded a Black Lives Matter chapter in Birmingham, described to a local news outlet being physically assaulted after he and his fellow protesters began recording their presence at the event. A cellphone was knocked out of his friend’s hand, he said, and then some punches were exchanged. Mr. Southall said that a Trump supporter threw the first punch, and he then swung back.

Mr. Southall eventually found himself at the bottom of a pile, being punched and kicked.

“Somebody got behind me and started trying to choke me out,” he told AL.com.

The altercation happened relatively far from the podium — Mr. Trump told Fox that he had not seen anything. He did, however, notice the commotion, and shouted from the stage to “get him the hell out of here.”

Mr. Southall also told AL.com that some in the crowd called him racial epithets after he interrupted the event.

In a video posted by CNN’s Jeremy Diamond, no slurs or epithets can be heard, but crowd noise drowns out much of the commotion.