Former Fox News contributor Bob Beckel violated a confidentiality agreement with the network during a recent radio interview, alleging that his 2017 firing from Fox was “set up.”
The former host of The Five was terminated after Fox News said he made a racist comment to a black IT staffer. Beckel now says the incident in question never happened, and that Fox just wanted a reason to get rid of him because he said too many negative things about President Donald Trump.
Beckel comes clean
The comments came at the end of Beckel’s interview on St. Louis’s weekly political show The Weekend Report on KFTK 97.1 FM. Host Tony Columbo said that Beckel told him prior to the show that he couldn’t discuss the Fox News termination, but that Beckel himself brought it up out of the blue as the interview was wrapping up.
“Just as we were wrapping up the show, I was saying thanks for coming on, and he said, ‘Can I just say one more thing?’ And then he said he knew he wasn’t allowed to talk about it but he didn’t care anymore,” Columbo told the Daily Caller.
“I’ve decided to use your radio show to be the first time I will say this to anybody,” Beckel told Columbo, “and that is in my view that I was completely set up by someone.”
Beckel went on to say that the allegation against him was “absurd” and noted that three generations of his family had pushed for civil rights. “People who know me were shocked that that would happen,” he quipped. “Well, they were shocked because it didn’t happen.”
Headed to court?
Beckel added that then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen had warned him at the time about saying negative things about Trump.
“Trump and I had known each other for a long time. I don’t like him, he doesn’t like me, that’s fine,” Beckel said. “But the fact that I was set up like that, no appeal, no chance to make my case… This was not about a racist comment. This was because I was the loudest voice on that network against Donald Trump.”
Beckel then admitted that he’d broken the confidentiality agreement he agreed to when he was terminated from Fox News more than two years ago before asserting that he plans to take legal action against the network “in the next six months.”
Third time’s the charm?
His 2017 firing was the second time Beckel was terminated by Fox News. He was also fired in 2015 while in rehab for abusing prescription painkillers, but was rehired in January 2016 after a brief time with CNN.
It’s clear that Fox News has moved on from Beckel, even if he hasn’t managed to move on from the network. The liberal did sometimes criticize Democrats, but was strongly critical of Trump after the election.
Fox News has declined to comment on Beckel’s allegations.
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