Again: Bob Beckel Is OUT At Fox News

Bob Beckel

For the second time in his career, Bob Beckel is out at Fox News

“Bob Beckel was terminated today for making an insensitive remark to an African-American employee,” the network said in a statement.

According to philly.com, the human resource department at Fox News was informed of the incident, which involved Beckel making an “insensitive remark” to an African-American employee, on Tuesday night.

After investigating the complaint, the network came to the conclusion that the longtime co-host on The Five needed to be terminated. He was informed of the decision Friday morning.

The decision also comes as 23 plaintiffs, including Fox News reporter and anchor Kelly Wright, are suing the network for alleged racial discrimination and harassment. Wright claims that he "has been effectively sidelined and asked to perform the role of a 'Jim Crow' -- the racist caricature of a Black entertainer."

Douglas Wigdor, an attorney who represents several current and former employees who have alleged racial discrimination at Fox News in a lawsuit, said he is representing the employee who complained about Beckel.

In a statement, Wigdor alleged Beckel “stormed out of his office” when an African-American information-technology employee came to service his computer, “telling our client that he was leaving his office because he was black.” Wigdor alleged Fox News executives tried to get the employee to withdraw the complaint. “As with our other 22 clients, we intend on holding 21st Century Fox accountable for these actions and will be filing multiple other complaints in other matters next week,” Wigdor said.

Kelly Wright

Beckel, a longtime Democratic political consultant, joined Fox News in 2000, and was one of the original co-hosts on The Five. He left the network in 2015 in a less-than-amicable split (former Fox News executive Bill Shine said in a statement at the time Beckel “took tremendous advantage of our generosity”) before returning in 2017 after a brief stint on CNN.

Beckel has a history of making controversial statements on air. Back in 2014, he made a racial slur about Chinese people on The Five that aired live.

Prior to his career in television, Beckel was the campaign manager for Walter Mondale’s 1984 presidential campaign and has worked on several political campaigns as a consultant.